


The Last Hurrah

by Darkshines1984



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Ashildir - Freeform, F/F, Mentions of Twelve x Clara, Smidgen of Team TARDIS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-06 21:11:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 41,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17352668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkshines1984/pseuds/Darkshines1984
Summary: Both the Doctor & Clara’s TARDIS take them to the same planet at the same time. Apparently, they are destined to work together once again – a real final hurrah. Multichapter fic.





	1. Redirection

**Author's Note:**

> Please note, this is meant to be a nice rounded finish to Clara's storyline and the Doctor x Clara's story line. So it will be both happy and sad. Just so you know.

_“You have to always be ready, always be alive, and always be willing to move in a new direction.”_

 

The Doctor hadn’t been anywhere on her own for what felt like ages. Since regenerating this time, she had been consistently with her three new companions. They had been travelling around time and space for roughly three earth months. Even when they popped home to see friends or families she hadn’t bothered going off on her own. Instead spending the time parked up in Sheffield, tinkering with the TARDIS.

This was the first time since accidently teleporting them all into space that she had gone solo. Graham had a friend’s wedding to attend so Ryan and Yaz had taken the opportunity to meet up with friends for the day. The Doctor had an appointment in the year forty forty-nine with a disgruntled President that she had been avoiding for quite some time. Now seemed to be as good a time as any to get it over and done with – although it may be confusing for the President considering she was a he when ending their intergalactic civil war by destroying the mining planet they were in dispute over.

The TARDIS was in full swing, flying smoothly through the time vortex (now she’d finally got the hang of the new systems) …then it wasn’t. Suddenly it jerked left, sending her sprawling across the floor. The Doctor was glad her friends weren’t there to witness it because that would have been embarrassing.

“What the…!” she exclaimed.

The Doctor scrambled to her feet and started trying to understand the data flashing across the screen of the console. It seemed her ship had rerouted itself – suddenly back peddling through time to twenty-five twenty-four. The Doctor was familiar with the location, but it wasn’t a planet or system she had visited before.

The TARDIS did occasionally do this – take itself to a time and location where help was needed. It would land in a different time to what she planned, or on a different planet in a system but it very rarely rerouted so dramatically as it was doing now. The destination was half the universe away from the original destination. It suggested something really huge was going on.

The ride was rough, so the Doctor clung to the edge of the console for dear life. She tried to stabilise the TARDIS but to no affect. It landed roughly, sending her sprawling again. This time she smacked her jaw against the grill on the console room floor, momentarily leaving her dazed.

The Doctor sat up and rubbed her jaw gingerly – no lasting damage done but it would smart a bit for a while.

“Brilliant” she grumbled sarcastically to herself.

The planet they had landed on was called Domos – which literally meant ‘dome’ in ancient Earth Greek. Domos was one of the planets populated by human colonies in the late twenty third century. They had stabilised the slightly unpredictable weather with an atmospheric dome (hence the name) which was monitored from a control centre on the surface. It was another huge step forward in human technology and capabilities, opening up more planets and systems as compatible for colonisation.

Streams of information was pouring on screen as the TARDIS scanned the planet. Most of it due to the fabulous dome but there was something troubling flashing up on the screen. There was traces of Altron energy, the same kind of energy that powered the TARDIS and other more primitive forms of time travel. There was also traces of something else which was even more troubling. If the scanners were correct, then there was traces of the same energy that was emitted by the time vortex right here on the planet. That didn’t make any sense and it didn’t bode well.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Clara was sat in the corner of the console room by the bookshelf, casually reading an original copy of Charles Dickens ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ that she had picked up in Victorian England. She had no idea where Me was on the TARDIS, although it probably involved a diary and a pen. They spent half their time exploring the universe and going on adventures and Me spent the other half writing about it.

It had been roughly twenty years since they had started traveling together. It was hard to really keep track aboard the TARDIS because you were darting back and forward through time. Neither of them really needed to sleep, only doing so out of habit, which also distorted time and how much of it was actually passing. Twenty years was her best guess. Twenty years without being able to see the Doctor again – or at least not properly. She’d dipped in and out of his earlier timeline occasionally, watching over him from afar. Twenty years of delaying the inevitable return to Gallifrey.   

The TARDIS suddenly slammed to a halt, throwing Clara forward in her seat so she was sprawling across the small table. She didn’t have a chance to right herself before the ship lurched forward suddenly, causing Clara to fall off the chair entirely and land on the floor. She rolled onto her front and pushed herself back onto her feet. The TARDIS was not flying fluidly at all and she grabbed onto the console, desperately trying to keep up with the information flashing across the screen.

“What’s going on?” Me asked as she stumbled into the console room.

The ship was juddering so badly that the other woman could barely stay on her feet without the support of the wall. So, when Me tried to join her at the console, the smaller woman nearly fell flat on her face. It would have been amusing if their own TARDIS wasn’t in the middle of kidnapping them.

“The TARDIS has changed our destination” Clara explained.

“Where to?” Me shouted from across the console.

Clara didn’t recognise the coordinates, but the planetary name was familiar. She was sure she had read about it in a history book about humanities future. She couldn’t quite place the reference at this moment – the problem with having a boring old human brain. Clara was more interested in the fact the ship wasn’t just detouring them to a different location. Something far more fascinating than that was happening.

“When might be the more important question” she replied.

Me glared at her, obviously irritated by the lack of a straight answer. When her and the Doctor had been travelling through time and space together it had been like two children let loose on the galaxy. Travelling with Me was a bit like going out with your mum. Even twenty years with Clara hadn’t completely removed the serious edges.

“We have stopped going back in time and now it’s taking us forward” Clara clarified – one hand gesturing wildly to emphasise her point.

She was ridiculously excited about this development. The TARDIS didn’t turn you around in time and take you billions of lightyears away from your original destination as a prank. Me on the other hand, looked incredible unnerved – although Clara wasn’t sure if that was due to the course change or the manic smile on her own face.

“How do we stop it?” the other woman practically demanded.

Clara grinned even more manically. This sounded a lot like trouble – and Clara really liked a bit of trouble.

“We don’t” she effused.

The TARDIS jerked violently again, earning Clara yet another glare from her travel companion. It landed on the planet with a crash – not enough of an impact to cause any damage, but enough to send some of Clara’s books flying from the shelves and shatter her empty tea cup on the floor.

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

The Doctor opened the door to the TARDIS and peered outside. They had landed near the edge of a low cliff on the top of a plateau. The plateau and surrounding hills were largely covered by trees, with forests for as far as the eye could see. Looking the other way there was also forest in the distance but at the foot of the cliff was a large complex with an amplification antenna on a tower. It looked distinctly like the control centre for the dome.

The largest building in the complex was covered in black reflective panelling – using energy from the sun (which was far closer than Earth’s sun) to power the dome and its systems. It was part of the reason its design was so ingenious. It was almost entirely powered by a natural energy resource – nature controlled and powered by nature. Brilliant. Clever, clever little twenty third century humans.

The Doctor walked a little closer to the edge of the cliff and looked down. There didn’t seem to be any of those clever little humans around. The control centre was mainly automated but there still should be a skeleton staff monitoring and maintaining it. If her interest hadn’t been already captured by the TARDIS’ unusual behaviour, then this would have piqued it anyway.

The Doctor took a couple steps away from the cliff edge, back in the direction of her ship, when a sudden searing pain ripped across her skull. It felt like someone was stabbing her in the brain with hundreds of little pins. Cranial acupuncture. It was agonising enough to make her call out in pain and drop to her knees in the dirt. Her head spun, and a bright light flashed in front of her eyes. Then many images flashed through her head, one after the other, at rocket speed.

Clara leaning out of her bedroom window as she…well at the time she was a he…sat outside the house guarding it. Clara stood watching the Rings of Akhaten, stunning as she was bathed in glowing red light. Clara leaping into the timestream to save her, Clara in that glittery dress on the Orient Express, Clara taking her hand at Christmas and running away in the TARDIS together. The two of them dancing in the Viking village, a drunken Clara at the longest new years party in the history of the universe, crazy Clara angering the plant life in what was the most beautiful (and apparently temperamental) garden in the universe.

Brilliant, beautiful Clara in tens of different moments during their time together before painful memories of Trap Street and that terrible moment when they discovered that they were the hybrid – after billions of years of misery in a desperate attempt to save the other woman. Clara’s dying scream echoed through the Doctors head as she clasped both hands around her temple’s. Her head hurt like hell, but the visions seemed to be over for now.

“No no no no this can’t be good” the Doctor muttered to herself.

As she dropped her hand down, she felt moisture on her own cheeks. The Doctor pressed her fingers against one cheek – they were tears. After Clara had died facing the Raven, the Doctor had been teleported into her own confession dial. At that point she had been so focussed and angry that she hadn’t mourned. At that point she had been determined that somehow, she could bargain for Clara’s life. Then after saving Clara only to realise that they couldn’t stay together, her memories of her beautiful companion had been wiped. By the time those memories were returned she was busy regenerating.

There hadn’t been time since then to stop and really take in everything that had happened – to truly experience Clara’s loss and how much it hurt. And it did hurt. It hurt like having your hearts torn out.

The grief wasn’t the main problem though. It made it hard to think clearly and function as well as normal, but it wasn’t the real issue. One of the potential problems of saving Clara the moment before her death, messing with a fixed point in time, was that it could potentially rip the whole fabric of time apart. The Doctor had bargained on the fact that if they separated ways then it would lessen the chance or even prevent it. The hybrid theory suggested they had to be together to cause mass destruction.

If this was something to do with Clara, then it could potentially be devastating to the universe…but then why would the TARDIS bring her here? Was it answering a distress call from another TARDIS? The Doctor was confused, and she hated being confused. Her ego couldn’t cope with not knowing the answer to things. 

Whatever was going on, the answer seemed to be in the complex at the foot of the cliff. It hadn’t seemed to the source of the Altron readings though, they had been dispersed more generally in the atmosphere. The Doctor took out her sonic screwdriver and waved it around, scanning towards the complex and then towards the forest behind the TARDIS. To her surprise the Altron readings had increased significantly since landing – and they were coming from the opposite direction to the complex. In fact, the readings were so high that it suggested a second time traveling device.

The Doctor followed the reading from the sonic past her own TARDIS and into the woodland, slowly picking her way through the dense trees and uneven forest flooring.

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Clara tapped some commands into the console and waited for the scan results. Me was stood next to her, waiting impatiently for the ship to complete the task. Data flashed across the view screen – a very familiar pattern appeared – and if Clara still had air in her lungs to hitch or a heartbeat then it would have been pounding in her chest around about now.

“It’s the Doctor’s TARDIS” Me stated – chewing her lower lip nervously as she spoke.

When Clara had transported the Doctor’s TARDIS to Nevada after his memories had been wiped, she had saved the energy signature to her own TARDIS. It had meant that if the other ship was with in range (which was vast in a TARDIS) she could track him. There was no doubting that the scanner was picking up the Doctor and he was parked up less than a mile away.

 “We shouldn’t be here” Me said seriously.

Clara understood why her friend was panicking. Her and the Doctor had separated for a reason and every time Clara had checked up on him it had made Me nervous. The implications of them being together were huge – he had tried to defy the laws of time for her and it risked tearing the whole fabric of time apart. That’s what the Gallifreyan’s had claimed anyway. She didn’t like them much or particularly trust them – but it wasn’t the sort of thing you risked. No matter how selfishly she may have wanted too. It was hard to be so altruistic now though when something had conspired to put them together again. 

“The TARDIS brought me here which means he needs me” she said determinedly.

 “Clara…” Me protested.

It was a half-hearted protest – like the other woman already knew there was nothing that would change her mind now.

Clara grabbed her leather jacket, which was hung over the rail of the stairs that led to the rest of the TARDIS. She had picked it up whilst they had been visiting New York in 1986 and it was currently her favourite item of clothing. Me was still stood rigid by the console, obviously still mulling over the situation. She had no intention of making the other woman do anything she wasn’t comfortable with. In fact, Clara didn’t intend for Me to get involved at all.

“You should go” she instructed.

The other woman ran her fingers against the console and sighed deeply. The smaller brunette made her way around the console to stand in front of Clara, leaning a hip against the room’s centrepiece.

“Is this goodbye?” Me asked.

Her friend may be solemn, but she was astute. Their time travelling together had always had a sell by date. It was inevitable that if time didn’t heal – if no heartbeat returned - one day Clara would have to return to Gallifrey to Face the Raven. Clara had always wanted to see the Doctor – not just from a distance – one last time before that happened. If this was the last stop before returning to Trap street, then the final part of the journey she wanted to take with the Doctor.

After Clara responded by simply nodding her head, Me stepped even closer and pulled her into an awkward hug. They didn’t normally do this – the hugging thing. Clara brought both her arms up and squeezed Me back briefly before pulling out of the embrace. Her friend looked sad – sadder than Clara had expected.

 “It’s been fun” Me smiled.

Clara flung her jacket over her shoulder and headed over to the door of the ship. She looked back at her friend and flashed a huge grin.

“Hasn’t it just!”


	2. Clara, My Clara

“Never regret anything you have done with a sincere affection; nothing is lost that is born of the heart.”

 

The Doctor had been walking for a few minutes when she heard something in the forest ahead of her. It sounded like something or someone was moving about out there, the weird thing was that the sonic wasn’t registering any life forms. Whatever it was seemed to be heading straight for the Doctor, so she made her way to the left quickly, standing behind a large tree that hid her completely.

The rustling and occasional cracking of branches came closer and closer. It was definitely a person, probably a woman given the fact their footfall was light. She peered out from behind the tree, nearly tripping over her own feet when she saw the figure. The Doctor would recognise the woman anywhere, even from behind – well she would now anyway – now her memories were back.

“Clara!” she exclaimed.

The petit brunette stopped dead in her tracks and slowly turned towards the Doctor. So many thoughts flashed through her head as she waited for Clara, her Clara, to face her. Why was the other woman here? How long had it been for her since they had seen each other last? What would she make of the Doctor now being a woman?  Would Clara even recognise her without being told who she was?

As soon as the other woman turned it was clear Clara knew exactly who she was – although there was evident surprise at how she now looked. So somehow Clara expected to find her here but didn’t know that she had regenerated. The Doctor’s brain raced a mile a minute until Clara opened her mouth – then everything came to a crashing halt.

“Doctor!” Clara said softly – “You look great.”

The Doctor felt like both of her hearts were racing, the sound of them beating echoing loudly in her own ears. Clara. Wonderful beautiful Clara. Stood only a few metres away. She stumbled a couple of steps closer to the other woman before stopping again, just out of touching distance of the brunette.

“You too…look great I mean…you look great…you look like you…which means…great. Clara. Hi” she babbled.

“Breath Doctor!” Clara laughed.

The Doctor chuckled and looked down at her own boots, trying to cover her own embarrassment. Her tongue seemed to be a lot looser in this regeneration.

Soft fingertips brushed against her jaw before resting under the point of her chin. The Doctor looked up to meet Clara’s eyes. They were big and brown and glistening with emotion. The other woman’s arm was at full stretch to reach her and the Doctor stepped closer into that space between them. The movement seemed to act as a trigger to the brunette. Suddenly Clara was pressed against the front of her, head buried in the Doctor’s neck and arms wrapped around her.

She was more of a hugger now than in her previous regeneration, but it wasn’t something she had done often at all. None of Graham, Ryan or Yaz were particularly huggy people so this was the first time the Doctor had experienced someone truly clinging to this body. She wrapped one arm around Clara’s back and buried the other hand in Clara’s wonderful glossy hair.

“You remember me” the brunette whispered.

“A goodbye gift from a friend before I regenerated” the Doctor explained.

She could feel Clara smiling against her neck, smooth lips teasing at surprisingly sensitive skin. She could feel Clara’s breath too, a habit the other woman apparently hadn’t lost despite no longer needing to do so. There was no rhythmic thud in her chest though – no sign that the universe was righting itself.

“No heartbeat” the Doctor sighed.

Clara was still only existing between one heartbeat and her last. The disappointment rose from her chest and into her throat, choking at her like she may cry. Only she was the Doctor and she didn’t cry – shouldn’t cry. So, she redirected the emotion by angling her head and pressing a soft kiss against Clara’s temple – causing the other woman’s breath to hitch in her throat.

“Good job you have one for each of us” Clara breathed – the brunette slid a hand between the two of them and pressed a warm palm against her chest.

They both pulled back slightly – although not completely. One of Clara’s hands still pressed against her sternum whilst the other rested on the Doctor’s waist. She let her own hands drop so she was lightly gripping the brunette’s lower arms just below the elbows. The Doctor could get easily get lost in Clara’s eyes, something which seemed quite dangerous if they were still basically the hybrid. She tried to focus on what was actually happening – anything but how good it had felt to have the warm press of Clara’s body against her own. Especially now her body was that of a woman, their curves had seemed to fit against each other well.

“Focus!” the Doctor chided herself – not meaning to say it out loud.

Clara raised her eyebrows and laughed lightly, causing the Doctor to blush slightly.

“How did you get here?” she asked the brunette.

That seemed as good as any place to start. Statistically it was improbable, if not absolutely impossible, that they both end up there at the same time and in the same place. It was literally multiple trillions to one that they would end up in the same time zone at the same time, never mind the same place. The Doctor was good at math but even she couldn’t work that one out of the top of her head. Even the sonic would need a minute or two with that equation.

“My TARDIS kidnapped me and brought me here” Clara shrugged.

“Ohhhhhhhhhh mine too!” the Doctor exclaimed.

That was exciting – more than exciting - a right old conundrum in fact. Had both ships answered a distress call at the same time? Could there be another TARDIS here and another time lord of regeneration of herself? She’d ran into versions of herself before, it was always a bit cringeworthy. Although she missed some of her earlier fashion choices – she had already tried the multicoloured scarfs look again and it went wonderfully with her top. No frilly shirts though – she definitely wasn’t a frilly shirt person this time.

Focus. She was meant to be focusing.

“Where are you parked?” the Doctor inquired.

“I’m not…I sent Me away” Clara replied carefully.

She looked up at the other woman, trying to gage the meaning of the words. Clara knew they couldn’t travel together again no matter how much they both wanted too. Was there a way of signalling Ashilder…Me…back - or did this mean something far darker that the Doctor wasn’t ready to contemplate yet. She shook the thought away and forced a smile back upon her face.

“Well, let me invite you back to mine” the Doctor grinned – holding her arm out for Clara to link - “let’s see if we can get any answers as to why we are both here.”

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Clara had spent the short walk to the Doctor’s TARDIS in a happy daze, listening to the other woman excitedly and animatedly explaining how she had met the first regeneration of herself and then spent Christmas Day 1914 in no man’s land on the Western Front. She suspected the Doctor was a little nervous, hence the continuous chatter. Clara didn’t mind – she’d even missed it.

This regeneration was a little more reminiscent of the first version of the Doctor she had met – full of exuberant energy. There had been a storm raging under the surface, something dark that she hadn’t understood until they met the War Doctor. This Doctor’s exuberance seemed more genuine and her edges softer. A little like the Doctor she had come to know and love best. Her Doctor, her daft old man. It was hard to have to adjust to another regeneration again, but Clara had to admit this Doctor was an upgrade when it came to physical attractiveness. She was beautiful, even with the quirky dress sense.

“Here she is, the old girl” the Doctor declared when they reached the clearing.

There, stood just a few metres away, was the blue police box. Even after travelling in her own version for years, seeing this one still gave her shivers. It overlooked a cliff face with a network of buildings below. Clara’s own TARDIS had picked them up when it scanned the planet and picked up some unusual readings.

They had walked arm in arm but now they reached the clearing the Doctor released her and bounced towards the blue box. Clara followed a few feet behind, stopping just outside the door to the TARDIS and pressing her palm against the smooth surface. She could feel it vibrating under her hands – it felt like a greeting.

The Doctor had disappeared inside so Clara followed her, turning as soon as she was inside to snap her fingers. It was satisfying when the front doors immediately slammed closed together, the ship listening to her like it had before they were forced to part. This TARDIS hadn’t seemed to like her at first but then the tides had shifted. It had become her home as much as it was the Doctor’s.

“She still remembers me then” Clara said fondly.

“The bossy one” the Doctor chuckled - “how could she forget.”

Clara swung around to protest, but the words died in her throat. The console room was very different to how she remembered it. It had been all smooth sleek metal surfaces with multiple levels, seating, bookcases and that ridiculous blackboard he was forever scribbling on. Not anymore. Now the console room appeared to be all on one level, darker and a whole lot more alien looking. There were large crystalline structures surrounding the console and the controls themselves looked more raggedy and botched together. It was more reminiscent of the former Doctor’s consoles she had seen when the Zyagon’s had tried to take over Earth. When she had met two previous regenerations of the Doctor, the war doctor and the one with the perfect hair and cheeky grin.

“You’ve redecorated” Clara stated – her voice slightly awed.

The Doctor was stood by the console and she glanced across at Clara and smiled almost shyly. The crystalline structures gave of a soft orange light which illuminated the blonde’s features. The previous regeneration would have looked out of place here, he was far more at home amongst the bookcases, but somehow the room just seemed to fit this Doctor.

“Yeah the TARDIS did it” the blonde woman grinned - “I really like it.”

Clara wasn’t sure what she felt about the new look. It was weirdly beautiful but nothing like the home she had come to know and love. At least there were still lots of hexagons – it wouldn’t be the TARDIS without the hexagons. In fact, there were tons and tons of them, the whole of the outer walls of the console room were constructed of them.

The Doctor turned back to the console and pressed a couple of buttons, Clara walked closer and stopped slightly further around the console, brushing her fingertips against the cool metal as she moved. The blonde looked deep in thought as she rolled the sleeves of her coat up to her elbows.

“So, any theories as to why we are here?” Clara asked.

 “I had wondered if the TARDIS had responded to a distress call from yours or vice versa” the blonde shrugged.

The Doctor scrunched her face adorably and stuffed her hands in her coat pockets. Surely, the Doctor would know if she had sent a distress call? Clara certainly hadn’t, and she very much doubted Me knew how. Usually a distress call was done in a hurry and Me had to use the manual to do anything other than just simply fly the TARDIS.

“I haven’t sent a distress call” she countered.

 “You may not have sent one yet…” the Doctor smirked, leaving the sentence hanging.

It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that a distress signal from one TARDIS to another could bring them to a point in time before it all went very wrong, in an attempt to entirely prevent an event from happening. It would have to be something major for either of them to send a distress call? Why would either of them even be here? Didn’t the Doctor say her TARDIS had redirected her too?

“But then surely only one TARDIS would have redirected and one of us would be where we expected to be” Clara voiced her thoughts.

The Doctor tilted her head to one side, her brow crinkling as she considered Clara’s words.

“That’s true” the blonde conceded - “so both of our girls must have received the same distress call.”

The Doctor tapped on another couple of buttons and pulled the console’s screen towards her. Clara stepped a little further around the console, so she was closer to the other woman and so she could see the screen too. The Doctor glanced up at her as she stood next to the blonde, her cheeks reddening, before returning her focus to the screen.

“Or not” the Doctor huffed – “there is no record of a distress call being made”.

Clara wasn’t completely surprised as she would have thought they’d have seen the distress call when the ships redirected. So, if there was no distress call then what had pulled them both here? What could be that huge?

“On all the planets, in all the galaxies across the whole of time…that’s not by chance and I don’t believe in fate. Something is happening here and now on this planet that is so significant that BOTH our TARDIS’ think we need to be here” Clara stated.

She quirked an eyebrow at the Doctor as she spoke, enjoying the return of that giddy feeling she used to get when they travelled together. It wasn’t that she hadn’t enjoyed her own travels with Me – it just wasn’t the same. Nothing was better than travelling with the Doctor. She’d seen many wonders throughout space and time and nothing else had compared to the altruistic Time Lord. The Doctors thoughtful face morphed to a large, bright, dorky smile at Clara’s words.

“Brilliant isn’t it?!” the Doctor enthused.

Clara tipped her head back and laughed. Trust the Doctor to think the possibility of extreme universe altering danger was the perfect afternoon jolly – trust her to feel exactly the same way. When she looked back at the Doctor, she found the other woman completely focused upon her.

“What?” Clara coaxed.

“I’ve never been the same height as you before” the Doctor smiled softly - “I get a better view of you from down here.”

Their eyes locked and Clara felt her mouth go dry and her breath hitch at the back of her throat. The Doctor now remembered the cloisters on Gallifrey – remembered what Clara had said to her…him. Regenerating into a woman made pronouns so confusing. The Doctor remembered what had been said in return. So, when the blonde’s eyes dipped to her mouth before flickering back up again, Clara held her breath and waited.

Nothing happened though – instead the Doctor swallowed hard, her throat visibly bobbing, before turning her focus back to the console screen. Clara squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep steadying breath. This was an all too familiar feeling too – waiting and hoping that the Doctor would make a move.


	3. Gizmo’s & Thingamajigs

_“The most creative people have this childlike facility to play.”_

The Doctor had tapped at the controls some more, and rambled on about the readings not being right, before dropping to her hands and knees in front of the console. She appeared to be routing around in the storage under there for various tools and equipment. Clara took the opportunity to have a look at the scan results for herself – instinctively understanding how the new console functioned. The TARDIS hummed and vibrated under her touch – a psychic communication that Clara could only half tap into. It had always been enough to help her safely navigate both this TARDIS and her own. Me had always been jealous as their ship had never been as responsive to the immortal brunette. Favouritism, Me had often called it.

The scan results were all over the place. The dome seemed to be fluctuating yet there was nothing obvious in the scan results that would be interfering with it – no natural phenomenon or technology alien to this planet. Whatever was causing the fluctuations was likely to be in the control centre, her and the Doctor’s next stop presumably. The readings that had the Doctor scratching her head seemed to be entirely unrelated. In fact, the TARDIS still seemed to be picking up elements of the time vortex – the sort of readings you saw when in fight. Yet they clearly were not in flight. Clara had no idea what they were currently doing since the Doctor had crawled down from view.

There was some clanking and banging from below the console and in the end Clara’s curiosity won out. She dropped onto her own hands and knees and peered into the recess under the console. They had cooked a Turkey down there once – her and the first regeneration of the Doctor that she had met. This Doctor certainly wasn’t making a roast though – just making a mess.

“What are you doing” Clara asked curiously.

The Doctor pocked her head out from below the console and grinned broadly, her arms laden with her coat and several tools including what looked to be a clamp and a soldering iron. They were virtually nose to nose but before Clara even had time to jump in shock the Doctor was thrusting the items into her own hands

“I’ve been working on these little gizmo’s that allow you to communicate using the same frequency as the sonic” the blonde explained excitedly – before disappearing under the console again.

The brunette quirked an eyebrow at the term – it was very unscientific, which made her giggle. Clara placed the tools and grey coat down beside her, before lowering herself down onto her hands again. The Doctor was still pawing her way through piles of equipment, with clearly no order to how any of it had been stored.

 

“Gizmo’s?” Clara grinned.

“Gadgets - ear phone cross microphones - micro mobiles – thingamajigs” the Doctor rambled – waving her hands around wildly as she spoke.

Clara couldn’t stop grinning at the woman below her. It had taken a while to adjust to the Doctor’s last regeneration, but she was already completely entranced by this one. She was wonderful, her enthusiasm infectious and her navy rainbow stripe t-shirt and yellow suspenders were totally adorable.

“Its 100% clearer now thank you” Clara quipped.

The Doctor’s head appeared again, and the blonde passed Clara two small metal boxes. They were surprisingly heavy for their diminutive size. There was a boy in High School, Carl Folliet, who had said the same thing to her once. She’d punched him. It was the only detention she had ever had – otherwise she had always been the top of the class.

The Doctor climbed out of the recess, clinging to something metallic and plonked herself (quite ungracefully) down on the floor next to the boxes and tools. It seemed a little odd to both be at floor level, so Clara stood up and walked around the console coming to a halt opposite the door and only a few feet away from the Doctor.

The blonde was organising – whatever she was organising and creating. So, Clara took the opportunity to look around the new TARDIS layout again. The centrepiece above the console used to be a metallic spiral with Gallifrayan lettering. This design was less metallic and far more organic – a large crystal protruding up from the console and towards the ceiling. It reminded her a bit of the wildest night out you could have in the universe – they had huge crystals that reflected (or possibly refracted) multi-coloured lights across the dance squares.

“Remember that planet with the people with the long necks who had been celebrating the new year for 2000 years?” Clara asked the Doctor – who simply nodded in reply - “well I went back for a few days.”

The blonde stopped what she was doing, still grasping one of the clamps, and looked up at her. Clara was positive that the Doctor could remember every embarrassing detail of the three days they spent there together. Her memory of at least half of it was very hazy because they had some superb cocktails. They barely seemed to affect the Doctor, but they had gone straight to her head – just before she’d lost it – figuratively…obviously.

“Did you find your dignity?” the Doctor asked.

Clara threw her head back and laughed. She really wished she could claim that had been the case, but it had been quite the opposite. Me had taken one look at the frivolity and hid in the TARDIS – Clara had joined her five days later with a humongous hangover and a ban from ever returning.

“God no” she admitted - “I started a mass brawl after accidently kissing the President’s daughter. I got arrested and everything – spent hours drunkenly bartering for my freedom.”

The Doctor’s reaction was a sight to behold. The blonde woman tipped her head back, rather like Clara had done, and laughed. When their eyes met the Doctor’s were sparkling with mirth and the other woman shook her head in disbelief.

“How do you accidently kiss someone?” the blonde asked – her tone laced with amusement.

That of course was the fifty-million-dollar question – and perhaps the most embarrassing part. Clara genuinely had no intention of making out with the President’s daughter, she couldn’t even remember what the woman looked like. In fact, she wasn’t even sure if the daughter was completely humanoid. Did she mention she had drunk a lot of cocktails?

“I thought she was Jane Austin” Clara admitted sheepishly - “I was very drunk.”

She had no recollection why she thought the President’s daughter was the author. Only that as soon as she locked lips with her it was completely unfamiliar and therefore clearly not Jane Austin. She’d snogged her plenty of times over the years – it had been Clara’s go to booty call. Nothing like having sex with someone with excellent diction and prose, it really aroused the English teacher in her.

The Doctor’s face fell a little at the explanation, her eyes losing the gloss of mirth even though a wry smile remained on her lips.

“You always were fond of good ole’ Jane” the attractive blonde commented – her eyes and head dipping to look at the clamp she was holding.

Clara recognised the look. She’d seen it before over Jane and over Danny, although she hadn’t understood it back then. It may be a different body, a different gender and a different face but that expression spanned regenerations. It made Clara feel just a tiny bit warmer.

“Are you jealous?” she inquired.

The Doctor kept her head dipped, nodding almost imperceivably before looking up and meeting Clara’s eyes again. The expression on the other woman’s face softened into a more natural smile, eyes regaining some of that previous amusement.

“She wasn’t my type” the blonde deflected.

Clara let out a rather undignified grunt in response and rolled her eyes. There was something else that never changed – the Doctor still skirted around discussing any feelings. It had taken Clara dying – and four billion years trapped in a confession dial – to drag them out of him last time.

The Doctor placed the clamp on the floor and put a small white blob in its vices. Then the other woman grabbed the soldering iron with one hand and with the other hand she placed the metal object on her head. It was some kind of protective mask, with the visor currently still up. It looked more ridiculous than the goggles she’d seen the bow tie regeneration wear one time. Ridiculous but also kind of endearing.

“What are you wearing?” Clara laughed.

“I’m soldering Clara!” the Doctor tutted – “Safety first!”

The blonde dramatically snapped the visor down over her face and fired up the soldering iron. Clara shook her head before leaving the Doctor to her gizmo’s – deciding to use this time to further explore the new console room.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

The Doctor had finished perfecting her new sonic transmitters and was ready to go explore. Clara had been waiting for the last thirty minutes and was more than ready. She had missed all that energy that the brunette exuded – that thirst for adventure and knowledge. They really were so alike – both driven towards the next adrenaline kick. Curiosity was a necessity when travelling with her but most of the Doctor’s friends had enjoyed the exploration more than the near-death experiences. Rather like the Doctor, Clara thrived on danger. It’s what had led to her terrible end on the trap street, but it was also what made her brilliant.

It was the brunette that led them out of the TARDIS already on her toes and primed for action. As soon as they stepped outside it was obvious something was different – it practically hit them in the form of a wave of heat.

“Wow somethings changed out here” Clara commented – shielding her eyes with her hand as she squinted up to the bright blue sky.

The heat was like the sort you’d expect on a desert on earth, dry and suffocating. The Doctor removed her sonic from right pocket and arched it above her head, scanning the atmosphere around them. It was now so bright that she had to squint to see the readings.

“The temperature has risen by eight degrees and the wind has increased by twenty kilometres per hour” she relayed to the other woman.

“I thought the dome-controlled weather variation?” Clara asked thoughtfully.

The Doctor took a second reading and checked the sonic again. It was troubling that there was such a huge change in conditions without there appearing to be any break or damage to the energy field of the dome. It simply seemed to have changed parameters. That suggested tampering with the dome’s settings.

“It should” the Doctor agreed - “but it’s currently allowing more UV energy from the planets sun to penetrate which is unsettling the lower troposphere.”

The wind had picked up enough already to cause their hair to blow around. One of the perils of having longer hair now was that it didn’t stay in place as well and blew across your face. It was itchy and irritating, and the Doctor wasn’t used to it yet. It was even more unruly when it got wet as she’d experienced when being dunked in a Lancashire lake during a witch trial. Her own witch trial – because apparently being a woman was perilous.

“Surely that can’t be good?” Clara worried her lower lip.

“It could cause one hell of a storm” the Doctor agreed.

That was probably an understatement. The dome would prevent the winds from dissipating – they would swirl around the globe, building and building – potentially creating a planet wide tornado. If the settings remained the same, then there was a risk of a storm so serious that it could rip the planets fault lines apart. That would lead to a whole other load of natural disasters (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves etc). It didn’t bear thinking about.

“Right let’s get a shift on with it then” the Doctor said enthusiastically.

The brunette grasped her hand, tugging her in the direction of the wooded decline to the right of the TARDIS. The Doctor followed willingly, allowing their fingers to intertwine. These new hands had only held another’s out of necessity, so it was momentarily distracting how warm and soft Clara’s hand felt in her own.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

They had picked their way through the forest hand in hand, only stopping once for Clara to unzip her leather jacket. It was stiflingly hot and if they’d have had to walk any further the Doctor would have needed to shed her coat. Their palms were both sweaty, something the Doctor would have expected to be unpleasant, but it didn’t make her want to release Clara’s hand.

When they reached the complex, they walked past a couple of smaller warehouse buildings which were separate from the main complex, probably terrain vehicle storage. They halted about thirty feet away from the main complex and Clara let go of her hand, so she could turn on the spot and look around. The Doctor mused that she missed the contact before redirecting her concentration back to the problem at hand.

“So – first impressions?” the Doctor asked her companion.

“It’s way too quiet” Clara responded instantly.

The Doctor couldn’t help but smile at how assured the other woman sounded. She was right of course – there was nobody around out here on the surface, not even a guard or two. That probably meant one of three things. One (and the worst scenario), everyone at the base had been horribly murdered. Two, it was far enough away from civilisation not to require an armed patrol. Three, everyone was too busy running around inside and panicking about the impending catastrophe.

“Exactly” the Doctor grinned – her grin broadening when Clara smiled brightly back at her.

She took out her sonic screwdriver again and took another reading of the atmosphere. The temperature had raised yet another degree. A second scan in the direction of the complex confirmed something the Doctor had spotted in the original scans from the TARDIS that had intrigued her.

“This facility is built upon the original control centre” she informed the brunette woman - “according to the TARDIS, that original underground structure is still there – but the reading showed some electrical activity.”

Clara glanced at the main complex building before taking a step closer to the Doctor, so they were standing shoulder to shoulder.

“What kind of activity?” the brunette asked.

“The readings are all off – could be the new structure causing interference I suppose” she puzzled.

Clara had a nose for trouble and it had picked up the scent. In theory some of the old systems could have been incorporated into the new complex but the scans were not giving clear results. That was strange and strange needed investigating.

“So, we divide and conquer?” Clara asked - “that’s the point of your gizmo’s, right?”

The brunette was as sharp as ever. If the two of them split up they could cover more ground and one of them was likely to be of the radar. If there was somebody or something tampering with the settings, then this could be a huge advantage. The only question was, who was announcing their presence and who was the ace in the hole – the trump card, the secret advantage, the card up the sleeve. Clara had always been the boss when they had travelled together so she left the decision in the brunette’s hands.

“Top or bottom?” the Doctor asked.

Clara snorted with amusement and raised her hand to hide her face. The Doctor looked at her blankly, racking her brains to understand what could possibly be funny in that question. Just as it was starting to compute with her how humans sometimes used those terms (a very disturbing conversation about human sexual habits with Amy started to spring to mind) Clara raised her hand in apology. It was clear that the other woman was still amused – perhaps even more so by the Doctor’s apparent innocence. She wondered if she should set the record straight or moan at human beings’ penchant for dirty jokes. In the end a quirked eyebrow was the only response she gave. Her brain starting to creep in its own direction – contemplating if the other woman had a preference. It was dangerous territory when she should be focussing on potential danger. It never did well to be distracted.

“I’ll take the underground structure” Clara finally replied once she’d managed to straighten her face out.

To emphasise her words, the brunette pulled a small torch out of her coat pocket. The Doctor gaped at it in disbelief for a moment because she certainly didn’t have one stashed away in her coat. Just her sonics, the two earpieces and a bag of jelly tots. At least she had a snack – she bet Clara didn’t have a snack stashed away. The brunette looked awfully smug though, a look that was very endearing on her.

“Ohh I like a woman who comes prepared” the Doctor grinned. Clara matched that grin, standing straight and proud.

The Doctor reached into her own pocket and retrieved the little box with the two earpieces in. She took them both out and placed them on her hand, discarding the box back into her pocket. She used her sonic screwdriver to make sure they were all tuned into the same frequency and there was no planetary interference. The sonic would boost their range massively. They were a cool piece of kit even if the Doctor did say so herself.

“One for you” the Doctor said as she passed Clara an earpiece – “and one for me.”

She placed her own gizmo in her right ear and waited for Clara to do the same. When Clara seemed happy it was snuggly in her ear the Doctor whipped out a surprise from her pocket. She’d found them before their trip to Kerblam! but hadn’t had an occasion to use them yet.

“You should probably take these too” she instructed.

The Doctor extended her hand out to Clara and passed her the item, grinning when Clara’s face immediately lit up. Considering the other woman had once said they were a bit ridiculous, she sure seemed thrilled to see them. The Doctor knew that the brunette had a soft spot for them really.

“The sonic sunglasses” Clara laughed - “I hope you’ve deleted that browser history of yours!”

The Doctor’s face fell – she most definitely had not. She reached out in panic to take them back from the brunette, but Clara drew her hand back out of reach. Clara smirked and placed the glasses on before turning one hundred and eighty degrees dramatically. The Doctor rolled her eyes as the other woman walked away in the direction of an underground access port just a few feet away. There was a good chance Clara would never let her live down some of the things her previous regeneration had searched for.


	4. Sneaking & Entering

_“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”_  
  


The service hatch led into a shaft, deep enough for Clara to be descending down into complete darkness. The only way down was a metal ladder. So, she’d had to put her torch between her teeth as she climbed down. At least she wasn’t pushed down this one to find out how deep it was – good thing too considering the drop had been about thirty feet.

When Clara reached the bottom, she removed the torch from her mouth and shone it around. She appeared to have climbed down into a large cavernous tunnel. The walls were made of some sort of stone brick, dark in colour but it glimmered when the light was directly upon it. She presumed it must be a material native to this planet because she’d never seen anything like it on earth.

As she shone the light up, she spotted large power cables running along the wall, just below where it arched into the celling of the tunnel. It was impossible to tell if they were in use but the short section her torch illuminated appeared to be well maintained. The tunnel appeared to go on both to her right and her left which meant she had a choice to make.

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

The nearest part of the complex to the Doctor had been a landing bay for small space craft. Obviously, no one was expected because the landing doors were closed but at the side of the hanger there were circular vents in the wall. The Doctor used her sonic to open the magnetic seals on the vent. She grasped the metal grill and tried to pull it away from the wall. It had obviously hadn’t been moved for quite some time and was rusted on. She placed one boot clad foot against the wall and grabbed the grill with both hands, giving it an almighty pull. For a moment she thought it wasn’t going to budge, but then it released, and she was falling backwards.

The Doctor landed flat on her back in the sandy dirt with a loud thump, holding the grill up above her. It had winded her slightly (and wounded her pride) so she lay there for a few seconds, catching her breath before discarding the grill to the side. The blonde stood up and brushed herself off, dust flying of her navy three quarter length trousers as she patted them down. There was now a round space in the wall, just large enough for her to crouch and squish through. The Doctor put one leg through first and ducked her body through the gap, her following leg catching on the wall and causing her to trip into the hanger. She was glad Clara wasn’t around to see her falling all about the place.

The hanger was dark, the vent she had opened providing the only source of light. She could just make out the outline of a shuttle craft in what looked like the centre of the large space. There were no lights apparent on the small spacecraft, so it appeared to be completely powered down. Apart from that the hanger seemed deserted. The Doctor steadily made her way across the hanger, using the sonic to provide a little light. As a Time Lord, she had superior sight to a human, but it was dark enough for even her to struggle.

The shuttle craft really was the only thing in the hanger other that standard equipment like a refuelling bay and other diagnostic consoles. So far there was nothing here that gave any real clue as to why they were here, other than the fact the control centre obviously didn’t have a great deal of people coming and going. It suggested that the workforce probably lived in the base and didn’t commute in. That wasn’t much of a surprise considering the TARDIS scan had shown there was no significant settlement for over a two hundred miles.

The Doctor made her way over to the back wall, where she presumed the door would be, only to find smooth walls. Obviously, the layout wasn’t as obvious as she’d presumed it would be. Before carrying on her search, she decided to check in on Clara.

“Clara can you hear me?” the Doctor tested her new toy.

“No” the other woman’s voice immediately answered.

For the briefest of moments, the Doctor thought something was actually wrong with the earpiece before it dawned on her that Clara was joking. The blonde rolled her eyes even though there was no one there to see it.

“Haha” the Doctor replied sarcastically - “is everything okay?”

“I’ve just climbed a ladder down a shaft into the pitch black” Clara enthused - “everything is great.”

The Doctor wondered how the brunette had managed to go so long without dying again. Clara was only functionally immortal – she wouldn’t age but she could still be killed. The desire to throw herself into danger didn’t appear to have been tempered by her death on the trap street – or perhaps Clara was different when travelling with Ashilder. Perhaps this was the ‘hybrid’ rearing its head again, perhaps it was the effect they had on one another.

“I’m in a boring dark deserted landing hanger” the Doctor shrugged.

It really was boring. She wished she’d walked a little further and found a door to the main complex. Instead she was feeling around in the dark like Marcel Marceau. She’d met him once in Paris in 1948 – odd bloke, mercurial - but that was irrelevant right now.

“Why?” Clara questioned.

“Oh, because I can’t find the door” the Doctor admitted - “did I mention that its dark?”

The other woman let out a genuine burst of laughter. The Doctor was disappointed that she wasn’t there to see it. She loved Clara’s laugh, loved the way it lit up the other woman’s features. Although that probably wasn’t relevant right now either.

“Should have brought a torch along then shouldn’t you!” Clara poked fun at her.

The Doctor wished she’d pocketed a torch like Clara had, it was one to remember for future reference. Bigger pockets – carry a torch. Noted.

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Clara was grinning to herself like a fool after her conversation with the Doctor. She’d missed their banter so much – yes it was slightly different than before, when the Doctor was a grey-haired sardonic scots’ man, but still familiar and recognisable. Considering she was in pitch black, below a malfunctioning atmospheric control centre, her natural ability to converse with the Doctor probably wasn’t the priority.

She shone her torch left and right again – the tunnel looking identical both ways for as far as the light reached. Clara was sure going right would take her back in the direction of the cliff, so left should take her to directly below the main building of the more modern control centre. So, left was the direction she was heading in.

She made her way steadily down the tunnel, using her torch to check the walls for any other sign of technology. After waking about fifteen metres she spotted a ladder up the wall, leading to a metal cabinet which looked like a fuse box. Clara put the torch between her teeth again and climbed up the ladder, lifting the cover on the box and peering inside.

Unlike the fuse boxes from the present day, this one didn’t have switches to flick up or down but touchscreen sliders. Some of them were slid up to green, the writing lit up, and others were red. These red ones did not have any backlighting, indicating to Clara that they were turned off. The systems that were switched on included environmental controls (air con she presumed) and two zones. One was labelled CLAB and the other OMDB. Clara had no bloody idea what either of those meant.

“Doctor are you still feeling about in the dark?” she asked as she climbed back down the ladder.

“Are you going to laugh at me if I say yes?” was the instant and slightly awkward response.

Clara grinned to herself again. She hadn’t progressed very far herself to be fair, but at least she had a vague sense of direction. Oh, and a codeword puzzle.

“I’ll let it pass this time because I have a question” she laughed - “do you have any idea what CLAB or OMDB might stand for?”

“Crying like a baby and over my dead body” the Doctor replied immediately.

Clara snorted with laughter and rolled her eyes. That was definitely a marked difference between regenerations. Her grumpy old man despised text speak, or shortened sentences. He had once ranted to her about the use of brb in one of her messages to him for twenty minutes solid. She wondered where the Doctor had learnt it – one of her new friends perhaps? The thought made Clara’s heart pang with something that resembled jealousy.

“I’m really hip now” the Doctor added after Clara didn’t immediately reply.

Clara found herself grinning like an idiot yet again. She hadn’t smiled this much in years. The Doctor, although younger looking now, came across as a massive and wonderful nerd. She suspected that her former regeneration with his electric guitar, rock jumper and tartan pants, was probably more effortlessly ‘hip’ – bohemian hip, was that even a thing? Whatever it was Clara had always found the look endearing, but he had always looked at his best in his red velvet coat. 

“Sadly, I don’t think its anything to do with texting” Clara tore her mind back to the present - “apparently they are zones down in the old underground centre that still have power routed to them.”

The brunette shone the torch ahead of her and steadily started to walk again. She wasn’t going to find these zones by just standing around and guessing at what they could possibly be.

“Don’t know – could just be that they utilised the old facility to house whatever helps power the dome other than the solar panels” the Doctor surmised – “given the time period it should be an antimatter drive, but it wouldn’t be a compact unit, so would require a space of approximately ten square metres.”

She could practically hear the cogs in the other woman’s head turning. In fact, she hoped there wasn’t a psychic element to the ear pieces or the Doctor would be hot under the collar listening to her thoughts.

Clara thought it would be very dull if all she found down there was a bit of antimatter tech. Not that antimatter drives were actually dull – she’d seen plenty on her travels and they were an amazing bit of kit and quite beautiful (Me had described them as resembling fireflies in a tube). The ones in the future anyway – her and the Doctor had visited CERN once, the psychic paper claiming they were CERN council appointed inspectors - and viewed the Large Hadron Accelerator and Antiproton Decelerator. It was very cool and all very clever for its time but huge in scale and not at all aesthetically pleasing.

“Or it could be something else entirely” the Doctor added.

“That wasn’t all that helpful Doctor” Clara sighed.

Not that she really minded – discovering it for herself would be more fun anyway.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

After Clara went silent again, the Doctor continued her search of the left wall for a doorway. It was very dark over this side of the hanger as it was about the furthest point from the grill she had removed to enter. The only light was the faint glow from her sonic.

A few steps further along and she finally found it. It was a sliding door that required an encrypted pass card to open it. Luckily the Doctor had something that granted her an all access pass. She pointed the sonic at the locking mechanism and waited for the right frequency to be transmitted – the door sliding open with satisfying speed. Considering she’d made this one away from the TARDIS, with a handful of Sheffield steel spoons and stuff she’d scrounged from a twenty first century warehouse, it was just as good as those she’d had before.

What did disappoint her, was that instead of there being a brightly lit facility on the other side, there was a pitch-black corridor. It was ever so slightly lighter because the walls had two reflective strips on them which enhanced the meagre light her sonic was emitting. The Doctor scrunched up her face in frustration before stepping into the corridor.

Suddenly the Time Lord’s world felt it was spinning on its axis and there was a sharp pain beating like a drum inside her skull. It was so uncomfortable that she fell onto her knees and pressed both hands against her temples. It had happened when she had first arrived on the planet, and like that time the flashbacks followed quickly.

_Clara, her hair still wet from her shower, damp towel slung across her shoulder. It wasn’t long at all since the two of them had completed a dangerous journey to the heart of the TARDIS – saving both themselves and the ship. Not that Clara could remember that, for her it was like it had never happened. The Doctor’s head was spinning though – already scared of losing the mysterious woman either after such a short period of time travelling with her._

_‘_ _I need to know if you feel safe. I need to know you’re not afraid.’ ‘ Of?’ ‘The future. Running away with a space man in a box. Anything can happen to you.’ ‘That’s what I’m counting on.’_

_Ashilder, or Me – whatever the immortal wanted to be called – sniping about the Doctor and their human companions. Playing on the genuine stifling fear the Doctor had of losing Clara. Ashildir’s words and the way she had said them had tormented the Doctor when stuck in the confession dial._

_‘She’ll die you know? She’ll blow away like smoke.’_

_Clara. Amazing, wonderful Clara. Her fate now a certainty on the trap street - but using her final moments to take care of the Doctor – to encourage and to command. Brilliant, strong Clara._

_‘You…. Now you listen to me. You’re gonna be alone now. And you’re very bad at that. You’re gonna be furious, and you’re gonna be sad. But listen to me: don’t let this change you. No. Listen. Whatever happens next, wherever she is sending you, I know what you’re capable of. You don’t be a warrior. Promise me. Be a doctor.’_

_Stood in yet another stolen TARDIS at the end of time, all hope of truly saving Clara’s life extinguished and the knowledge that together they were the destructive ‘hybrid’ that the Time Lords feared. He had been planning to wipe her memory, the only way he thought he could keep her safe, but Clara was having none of that._

_‘Nobody’s ever safe. I never asked you for that, ever. These have been the best years of my life and they are mine.  Tomorrow’s promised to no one, Doctor. But I insist upon my past. I am entitled to that. It’s mine.’_

The Doctor gasped for breath as the flashbacks, dizziness and searing headache subsided. She wasn’t sure what was happening or why, but she was convinced the answer was in this base. The blonde dragged herself to her feet again, pressing her hand against the wall to balance herself until she felt less nauseous.

She looked around the corridor again using the sonic to illuminate it as much as possible. There was only one direction she could go, the doorway entering at the very end of the corridor. It obviously led from the hanger to the main facility. So, either the entire facility was powered down, which was unlikely as the dome was still functional – just fluctuating, or all the lights were turned off for some unknown reason, or they really were not expecting visitors and just this section was powered down.

The Doctor took a couple of strides along the corridor, her senses fully on alert now. As she moved there was an uncomfortable crackling in her ear, like interference. There shouldn’t be an issue with range, the sonic would amplify the signal for nearly ten miles – they certainly hadn’t walked that far apart, and Clara hadn’t climbed ten miles down a ladder.

She was just about to ask the other woman if she was registering any interference, when Clara’s voice rang out in her ears. It was slightly distorted but still clear enough to hear every word.

“What was that?” the brunette asked.

The Doctor would have presumed Clara was just referring to the interference if not for the obvious apprehension in her tone.

“Is everything okay?” she checked.

There wasn’t an instant response, and as the seconds ticked by then she started to worry. She stopped in her tracks, just a few feet away from the exit at the end of her corridor; and pointed her sonic at the ground below her. The readings that she was getting back were strange. It was like something was blocking her attempt at scanning the older structure below. She was getting some readings, but nothing concrete or clear, like she was trying to scan through some sort of force shield. The base itself had no such protection, just the structure below. The Doctor was sure she was only faintly picking up Clara’s signal at the moment because the sonic earpieces were amplifying the signal.

“Speak to me Clara” the Doctor ordered (although there was a slight hint of begging in her voice).

That fear of losing the brunette that had suffocated her at times when they travelled together was simmering just below the surface. The Doctor tried to breath deep and calm her racing hearts – moments away from bolting back out of the hanger and going to find the other woman.

“I heard something ahead of me” Clara suddenly spoke up again, the connection still crackling - “I think there might be someone down here with me.”

The Doctor desperately pointed her sonic at the ground again, trying to get any kind of useful reading. She wasn’t picking up any signs of life except Clara but then according to these readings the brunette was stood in a void. She set the sonic to try and break the frequency of the shield but given the number of possibilities it could take hours. She could hear another crackling on the earpieces but this time it was indiscernible.

“Clara what is it? What do you see?” the Doctor pushed.

At that moment, the doors in front of her slid open with a hiss, plunging the Doctor from pitch black into bright blinding light. She threw her left hand in front of her eyes to cut out the sudden glare and dramatically pointed the sonic into the newly revealed corridor with her right.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Clara had walked approximately another twenty metres, coming to what seemed to be a gradual bend in the tunnel structure. The tunnels had so far been eerily quiet but suddenly she had heard noises coming from around the corner – like something or someone was moving towards her. It was too big to be something as simple as a rat. She’d accidently alerted the Doctor about her concerns – momentarily forgetting the Time Lord could hear her as she spoke to herself.

Clara was tempted to turn her torch off so whatever was moving around just beyond the curve of the tunnel couldn’t see her. The problem was, if she did switch her light source off then she wouldn’t be able to see them or it either. That didn’t seem appealing at all. There was an eerie orange glow now emanating from around the bend, getting closer in what felt like incremental stages – like lights were turning on one at a time.

“Clara what is it? What do you see?”

She could barely hear the Doctor due to the interference she was getting on their communication device. There was every intention to reply to the blonde but then the area of the tunnel right in front of her lit up, the orange glow virtually blinding her as her eyes struggled to adjust from the previous inky dark.

Clara was sure she could hear someone – no maybe two sets of footsteps, literally just ahead of her. She was bracing herself to deal with whatever or whoever appeared around the corner when her eyes finally adjusted enough to see in the orange glow. Just to her left there was a plain metal doorway – heavy looking but with no obvious signs of rusting.

Clara stuck her torch in her mouth again as she dashed the few paces to the door, leaving both her hands free to turn the nautilus door style locking mechanism. She grasped the steering wheel like structure and began to frantically turn it clockwise, the Doctor’s voice still crackling and concerned in her ear.


	5. I’m The Doctor

_‘Sometimes a little subterfuge and chicanery is in order and the quickest way to achieve one's goal.’_

 

Clara was relieved when, on the third turn of the door lock mechanism, there was a satisfying clicking sound. She pulled the heavy metal door open just enough to fit through and pulled it shut behind her. The weight of the door made it look firmly shut so she decided not to try and close it fully again, in case the turning of the mechanism drew attention to her location.

Unlike the glittering stone walls of the tunnel, the corridor she found herself in was clad in some kind of metal plating and was far less cavernous in size. It wasn’t dissimilar to the interior of some of the less advanced spaceships she had seen on her travels. The design not totally unrecognisable to her own time period on Earth. The corridor was also dimly lit, not with an eerie orange glow but normal artificial light – but perhaps running on a power save option or low wattage.

Clara followed the short corridor. There seemed to be a couple of other corridors leading from it but before it branched off there were two doors on either side of her. These doors looked much lighter than the one that led directly from the tunnel. She turned to the one on her right and pressed the black button on the wall next to it. The door slid open to reveal a large lowly lit room. She peered in, observing that its contents – shelves of what looked like spare parts, some computer circuitry, work equipment and a work bench – and concluded it was a maintenance area. It didn’t seem abandoned as the circuitry still seemed live and there was no dust or anything else that would suggest it had been deserted for any length of time.

She moved across to the left side of the corridor and opened that door. The lighting was still low, but she could clearly see it was a common room area. Clara stepped into the room, the motion causing the illumination to increase to a more comfortable level. Now she could see the detail clearly, the room instantly confirmed her suspicions.

To the right of the door there was a kitchen area, a glass of some purple liquid half drunk on one of the surfaces. It didn’t appear to be old and there was not smell to the room like you would normally get if food or drink had been left out to decay. To her left there was a table with two chairs surrounding it, a navy coat slung over one them. On the table there was a deck of playing cards just like you would find on twentieth century earth, a futuristic tablet computer and a board game that she didn’t recognise. It all suggested that the area was still in use or that whoever had been there had left in a hurry.

The far end of the room was a large sitting area with sofa style seating and what looked like a holographic projector facing a white panelled wall. That suggested home comforts rather than just somewhere to spend a break time. Clara wondered if the other corridors led to living quarters but then it made little sense having those that man the base sleeping down here. There didn’t even seem to be any access points down to this level from the base above unless it was down one of the branches of the corridor.

“Doctor can you hear me?” she asked.

It had dawned on her that ever since entering the corridor she hadn’t heard the other woman’s voice, or even any interference. In fact, it didn’t seem like the ‘gizmo’ was now working at all.

“Great” Clara griped.

She looked up at the ceiling above her, partly out of frustration and partly to see if there was anything obviously blocking the signal. It looked run of the mill – like the walls there was some sort of metal plating lining the ceiling. Clara wondered if the metal had some sort of property that was deflecting (or was it technically reflecting?) the signal so she took the sonic sunglasses out of her pocket to try and find out.

Clara was about to put them on when she heard the heavy creaking door to the tunnel opening. Whoever or whatever was in the tunnel was now in the corridor outside but there was no point trying to hide. She wasn’t flush with places to hide in here anyway unless she crawled behind a sofa. On entering the room, she had triggered a motion sensor. The fact the lights were on full would give her presence away.

She turned towards the door of the living area, trying to portray an air of col confidence, and waited for her company to arrive.

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

The Doctor stepped into the newly revealed corridor and looked around. It was very different from the hanger structure – a building she now suspected predated this one. The walls were made of a smooth white synthetic material with the lighting panels built into the structure in the form of two continuous strips. It made the corridor extremely bright and almost clinical looking. The surfaces, including the white floor, were extremely clean and sterile looking. If she didn’t already know the building’s purpose, she would probably have guessed (incorrectly) that it was a hospital of some sort.

Other than its absurd cleanliness, there was nothing special about the corridor or its design. There were also no directions. It was a small detail that always bugged the Doctor – that as time went on most cultures seemed to abandon the reliable old signpost. She liked a signpost. Nothing wrong with a bit of simplicity.

There was an idling control panel on the wall just a few yards down, so she walked over to it and prodded it with her forefinger. The screen came to life, backlit blue, with a mixture of symbols and the good old English language. It was asking for a passcode, so she took out her sonic again and bypassed the security system. The Doctor was quickly able to pull up a map of the base, identifying that the main control room was a little walk away.

Suddenly the screen flashed red, the words unauthorised access filling the panel. The Doctor scrunched her face up in frustration. Apparently, the security system was a little more advanced than she had given it credit for. She used her sonic again to override the alarm, but she suspected it was too little too late. Her presence was no doubt now known to someone, be it friend or foe.

Ah well, she was meant to be the one out of the two of them who was making a grand entrance anyway. The Doctor started to stroll casually towards the control room, wondering when her welcome party would arrive.

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Clara was relieved when the only thing to appear in the doorway were two blokes in boiler suit like uniforms. Well, she was sort of relieved, but she was also a little bit bored by it! A two headed dog or something of that ilk would make for a bit more excitement. The two men did a double take too, obviously expecting an intruder – but not a petite female one.

One of the men was slightly shorter, with floppy dark brown hair and a chinstrap beard. The other man had his blondy red hair much shorter cut, similar to a short back and sides. He looked younger but that could just be due to the fact he had no facial hair. Both had to be into their late thirties though, if not older.

“How the hell did you get down here?” the taller of the two men asked.

Clara thought it was an interesting choice of first question. Usually people would ask a stranger who they were, not how they arrived at the location. It suggested it was unusual for anyone to get down there, and that there was no obvious or easy access from the above base. Now she was even more intrigued about why they were down here and where the power was being routed too. The mysterious CLAB and OMDB.

“I climbed down a service ladder” Clara answered honestly – “how did you get down here?”

Both men glanced at each other, clearly thrown by both her presence and the conversation. Their silent communication wasn’t subtle – Clara could tell they were not comfortable or happy with her being there.

 “We work down here” the bearded man said defensively.

“Maintenance” the other man added – “we look after the cabling, piping and systems still in operation in this underground section.”

They both stepped into the room, their body upright and square. Clara noticed straight away that they both wore belts with what looked like a futuristic handgun clipped to them. Their black all in one uniform’s had no logo on them and they wore no identification. She found it strange and it immediately began to ring alarm bells in Clara’s head.

“I’m not sure I have ever seen maintenance workers who carry weaponry” she commented.

 “They are just precautionary” the blonde man quickly answered.

The two men glanced at each other again, the smaller of the two crossing his arms over his chest. They were not being open with her, that much was obvious. The big question was why? What were they hiding?

“If no one comes down here then who are you taking precautions against?” she pressed.

Clara noted the way their body language changed at her probing question. Both men bristled, their body language – especially the bearded one – became a little more aggressive. He took a step towards her, opening his body up to look bigger and more assertive. It suggested that if there was a hierarchal structure between the two that he was the superior. Although the superior what she wasn’t sure. They certainly were not maintenance staff though.

“Who are you?” he demanded - “show me your CAPTO credentials?”

Clara had no idea who or what ‘CAPTO’ was. That was one big difference between travelling with the Doctor and travelling with Me. The Time Lord flung herself into situations and figured everything out as she went along. It was quite an organic, haphazard and frankly brilliant process. Clara loved it – hell she had even missed it. There was something to be said for Me’s method of adventure though in situations like this. The other immortal would use the TARDIS archives to research the planet, culture and era thoroughly before venturing out. It meant they always had a good idea about who and what was important or significant.

“My credentials are a little more universal than any planetary organisation” she shrugged.

When in doubt, play up your own mystery and self-importance and hope you can impress or befuddle people into submission. The two men didn’t seem impressed or befuddled though – just irritated. In fact, they both looked really quite angry.

“I’m only going to repeat this question once” the bearded man growled, resting his hand on his sidearm – “who are you?”

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

The Doctor had traversed another two corridors when she started to hear movement around her. There was certainly footfall getting closer behind her – three people if her ears were not betraying her. She stopped, turning back to greet whoever was about to turn the corner behind her.

To the Doctor’s surprise and irritation, the first man around the corner was armed and instantly fired at her. She managed to dodge the shot and took of in a run, quickly charging around the next corner and out of range. She could hear them following her, but she was quicker – her smaller frame making it easier to speed around the corners and branches of the corridor.

The blue blast that had emanated from the weapon had probably just been an electrostatic stun gun, but she had no intention to test the theory or desire to be knocked unconscious. The Doctor wasn’t feeling too warm to this branch of humanity right now. She never appreciated anyone whose policy was to fire first and ask questions later.

Her mood soured further when she ran around one turn in the corridor and nearly barrelled into yet another man carrying a weapon. This one at least had the decency to just point his gun at her and not just shoot her on the spot.

He was quite a tall but slender man with a tanned skin tone, black hair and designer stubble. His was probably only in his early thirties, with strong sharp features that she supposed many would find attractive.  There was something about him that exuded the confidence of someone in a position of power. If he wasn’t the leader of the base, then he was high up the food chain. A fact that was confirmed when the three men who had been chasing her slammed to halt when they rounded the corner and nodded their heads at him.

“Who are you and how did you get here?” he asked.

“You lot are a bit trigger happy, aren’t you?!” the Doctor grumbled as she removed the psychic paper from her inner pocket – “are you always this welcoming?”

She thrust the paper irritably towards him. It was a useful bit of kit, its only downside being that she had no idea what he would see. He leant in slightly to read it, the name badge on his blue and white all in one uniform no longer being obscured by his gun. His name (or probably his surname) was Hernandez and his rank was Second Viceroy. That meant he was second in charge if ‘Viceroy’ still had a similar meaning to the old Earth role of the same name.

“A CAPTO scientist?” he said doubtfully - “you don’t look like a member of CAPTO…or a scientist for that matter.”

The Doctor instantly bristled – she had no idea what CAPTO was, or maybe she did because it rang a bell, but then it was a fairly common sounding word – but she was a scientist! She was better than the scientist! There was an annoying tendency now that she was a woman for men to talk down to her – it was most disconcerting and distasteful.

“Rude” she griped at him.

He side eyed her suspiciously but still lowered his weapon, the three men behind him following his lead.

“I didn’t think anyone was being sent to aid us yet” Hernandez stated – “and how did you get here so quickly, the system only started malfunctioning six hours ago?”

The Doctor didn’t have an answer she deemed suitable to that question. He didn’t need to know about her wonderful little ghost monument that allowed for time and relative dimensional travel in space. The most important thing she picked up from what he said was the length in time it had been malfunctioning for – six hours was no laughing matter for something which controlled a planets atmosphere to be ailing. Surely the base should be pleased to have scientific aid but that wasn’t the feeling she was getting from him?

“That suggests that help would be appreciated but you don’t look keen to have me here” she remarked - “why is that?”

The Doctor watched his reaction to her words carefully. He was obviously trying to remain unreadable, but she could see a flicker of uneasiness in his eyes. He was hiding something, of that she was certain.

“Everything is under control, we don’t require help” Hernandez replied coolly.

“If the system has been malfunctioning for six hours and you still haven’t stabilized it yet then it sounds like you require help to me” the Doctor pushed.

It was likely that CAPTO was the organisation that controlled or legislated over the base, so either he was doing something wrong that required hiding or whatever was going on was so worrying that they were trying to keep it under wraps whilst they solved it.

She whipped her sonic out of her pocket, causing his hand to twitch on the large weapon was holding until he saw the device and obviously decided it didn’t look very threatening. She scanned her surroundings again, firstly to confirm that the four men were human and not some invading aliens.

The readings suggested they were indeed humans – the only thing she knew that could completely disguise itself and be unreadable from real humans was a Zygon – and it wasn’t their style to compromise a planet, they just repopulated it. The rest of the scan was much less cut and dry though. It was only getting stranger the deeper she got into the base.

“Plus, these readings are weirder than weird – and I love weird – weird is my middle name…well it’s not…obviously” the Doctor babbled.

She stopped talking when she saw Hernandez’ facial expression severe and become extremely suspicious again. He didn’t raise his weapon again, but his grip on it noticeably tightened.

 “I don’t care what your ID says, you are not from CAPTO” he spat - “so who the hell are you?”

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

_“I’m only going to repeat this question once” the bearded man growled, resting his hand on his sidearm – “who are you?”_

Clara glanced down at the hand that was hovering far too close to his gun for her liking. What an earth was going on down here that would justify shooting an intruder? It certainly wasn’t the maintenance of a few electrical cables.

Usually when adventuring, she introduced herself to people they met with her real identity, sometimes having to explain that she was an immortal traveller in time and space. She expected that the two men might have shot her before she managed that fairly lengthy explanation. This required the emergency identity that she had only fell back on once before. Well three times before if you want to be totally precise - but the other two times had been pre-dying so didn’t count.

Clara took a deep breath and made herself as big and cocky looking as possible. Time to get in character – and this was a role she was perfect at mimicking. She had spent plenty of time studying the real deal after all.

“I’m the Doctor” she declared.

The two men looked wide eyed at her and then at each other. The name had triggered a recognition response. The gravity of it meant something to them and she noticed the bearded man’s hand fall away from his weapon.

“Heard of me?” she added brashly.

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 _“I don’t care what your ID says, you are not from CAPTO” he spat -_ _“so who the hell are you?”_

The Doctor didn’t appreciate his tone.

“You really are rude” she chided.

In former regenerations that may have been a little ‘pot kettle black’ but she was perfectly pleasant and polite – or at least she was trying to be. Her patience was waning with this gun wielding welcome party though. 

“I’ll get a whole lot ruder if you don’t answer my question” Second Viceroy Hernandez said firmly.

Apparently, his patience was waning with her too.

She stuffed her sonic back in her inside pocket and put her hands on her hips. The psychic paper charade wasn’t working for her. That was okay – trying to blend in was boring anyway. There was something about being a time travelling two-thousand-year-old alien that usually blindsided people into paying attention to her.

“I’M the Doctor” she boldly announced.

The man just stared at her, like he was waiting for something else to follow. When she didn’t add anything to her statement, he simply shrugged at her.

“Doctor Who?” he asked.

In any regeneration she bloody hated that response - except the bow tie regeneration but then he was a weird one.

“Really?!” she grimaced, scrunching up her face in disgust - “Why DO people always ask that?!”


	6. It’s a Puzzle

**_“It is a great act of cleverness to be able to conceal one's being clever.”_ **

 

_“Doctor Who?” he asked._

_In any regeneration she bloody hated that response._

_“Really?!” she grimaced, scrunching up her face in disgust - “Why DO people always ask that?!”_

 

There was an awkward silence and the Doctor glanced behind her to see the three men who had originally given chase staring at her blankly. However, Hernandez looked less blank and more…irked. The Doctor could tell he wasn’t in the mood for her little peeves, so she raised both hands to calm the situation.

“Listen, I’m here to help” the blonde assured him - “that’s what I do…I travel through time and space fixing things.”

There was a sudden flicker of recognition in his eyes. That was one of the advantages of exploring planets and universes in the later centuries, her legend had plenty of time to swell by this point as there were longer lasting and better ways of recording it. When travelling in humanity’s past they usually didn’t have a clue who she was.

“There are many old earth legends about THE Doctor” Hernandez said suspiciously - “he often changes his face, but I don’t recall HIM being a woman.”

The Doctor wanted to face palm herself in frustration. She loved this new body and it was physically quite a novelty being a woman. It was less of a novelty that suddenly people were lot less receptive to her authority now she wasn’t a man. It was just the icing on the cake that people now doubted she could be the legendary Doctor because her reproductive organs were now on the inside and not the outside.

“Surprise!” she dramatically threw her arms out to the side, but her tone was laced with sarcasm.

It drew very little reaction from the Second Viceroy, who seemed perfectly happy to waste time by standing there gawping at her. The Doctor’s frustration levels were exponentially rising – not impressed with her desire to help being blocked by this stubborn and irritatingly stoic man. A change of tact was needed.

“Take me to your leader?!”

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Clara could tell that the name of the Doctor held some gravitas to these men. That was good, it meant she would instantly command respect from them. The smaller bearded man gestured for Clara to sit at the dining table. She sat at the end nearest to the sofa whilst the two men took the seats opposite to her.

“Well, now you know who I am, may I ask who you are?” she asked as soon as they were seated.

Clara didn’t miss the surreptitious glance between the two men before the bearded man, who clearly outranked the other man, answered.

“I’m Ares and this is Ben” he introduced them.

Both men were trying to appear relaxed, allowing their posture to drop in their seats. However, the taller of the two was nervously wringing his hands and Ares had his arms folded defensively in front of his body. Step one of the Doctor, other than being baffling and whacky, was to take control of the situation. So, Clara leant forward, using her elbows on the table to prop herself up – oozing easy confidence.

“Nice to meet you Ares and Ben” she effused - “sorry to drop in unannounced.”

Ares smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Clara didn’t trust him – didn’t trust either of them in fact – but they were armed, and she needed to manage the situation carefully.

“You’re here because the atmospheric dome is malfunctioning?” Ares guessed.

Technically she was here because her TARDIS thought a field trip with the actual Doctor was in order, but that wasn’t an explanation she could offer. So instead she simply nodded her head sharply. Clara was about to ask them about the anacronyms that had piqued her curiosity on the switchboard when the bearded man spoke up again.

“Surely if you are looking for answers then you should be up there and not down here?” Ares suggested - “the only thing that is still in use down here are the power conduits and their output has remained consistent.”

“You’re down here” Clara countered - “and I don’t understand why power conduits would need their own separate maintenance crew.”

Now, this was what was troubling her about both men but Ares (if that even was his real name) in particular. He was a little too eager to play down anything of significance in these tunnels. If there was nothing down here of significance, then they wouldn’t need to be armed to protect it.

Clara patiently awaited whatever tale they were about to spin. She was sure that the two men would be well prepped enough to have a ready-made cover story.

“Its an old system now and isn’t compatible to run with the new mainframe” Ben answered this time - “it was a serious design flaw to incorporate its use into the new base and not start it again completely from scratch.”

It was almost believable. Almost – but it didn’t quite ring true. It still didn’t explain why they were armed, and it still didn’t explain why the two men were not only working apart from everyone else but living apart from them too.

“It’s not as efficient as trans dimensional travel” Ares quipped.

Clara smiled, but it was a smile purely meant to cover her real feelings towards his words. Perhaps she was being presumptuous and rude towards the profession, but she doubted your average maintenance engineer would have such a good knowledge of the Doctor. Not in any time period or any galaxy. Ares entire body language and knowledge reminded her of something from her own time period – UNIT.

There was something down here that was being monitored and protected by men she was starting to suspect were from a government agency. Perhaps from this CAPTO they had previously mentioned?

If they were government agents or something similar, then they were unlikely to willingly share information with her, even if she was parading around pretending to be the Doctor. Clara was going to have to be a bit sneaky if she wanted to find out more. They were unlikely to want to let her out of their sight now, so she needed a way of searching the area without them knowing. Thankfully she had the solution in her right jacket pocket.

“Is there a way to turn the lighting back down in here?” Clara asked, directing her question towards Ben - “this type of artificial illumination isn’t ideal for Time Lord biology.”

The tall blonde man looked a bit baffled and glanced towards Ares for some guidance. It was the bearded man who replied, again confirming her suspicion that he was in charge.

“No sorry, not without turning it off” he shrugged.

That was just the answer that Clara wanted.

“Never mind, I carry these for such an occasion” she grinned broadly.

Clara took the sonic sunglasses out of her pocket, opening the arms up with a flourish before placing them over her ears. Both men looked at her like she was a bit barmy – so she was obviously doing an excellent impression of the Doctor.

She focussed her mind on what she wanted, grinning just a little bit more when the sunglasses burst into life and started a 3D scan of the area. The sonic screwdriver was neat but these, these held such fond memories of the period when she fell so deeply in love with the Doctor that she had felt like she was flying. She had held on tightly to her ‘normal life’ before that Christmas – always balancing the two. Afterwards she would travel with him for whole months before returning to do one day at work, only to run away with him again the next evening. They had been the happiest times of her life. Just Clara Oswald and the Doctor in the TARDIS.

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

The Doctor had been frog marched to the main control room – Hernandez tugging at her by a handful of coat on her upper arm. He was significantly taller than her, and her shorter legs had trouble keeping up – a problem she wouldn’t have had back when she was a gangly grey-haired Scotsman. She refused to be forced to run though and eventually managed to shake his grip off without causing too much of a ruckus.

The Control Room had a doorway with a chamber in front of it that scanned you before it would allow you to enter. She’d seen similar tech before, it was a more updated version of an airport scanner. It looked for signs of weaponry, offensive weapons, explosive or chemical material. Very sensitive. They obviously took their security very seriously, although she had gathered that when they had shot at her before even stopping to say hello.

Hernandez went through the scanner first, still carrying his weapon. The screen alongside the scanner registered the weapon but also the code on his ID badge. It obviously gave him clearance to carry such a gun. The Doctor was impressed – she’d be more impressed if they were less rude though. She disliked rude people, nearly as much as she disliked pears. One day she’d regenerate into a person who actually ate pears, maybe she’d even be ginger. A ginger pear eater.

“Doctor” Hernandez instructed – breaking her from her thoughts.

He was now stood on the other side of the scanner, in the entrance to the control room, and gestured for her to follow him.  The three men behind her hovered nervously, like she was going to suddenly turn tail and run or turn them into toads. She stepped into the scanner, eyes following the moving scanner arm with curiosity as it passed in front of her body. Like the scanners of the twentieth and twenty first centuries it used non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation, but on a nanometric level.

She could hear the screen flashing to the side of the scanner and one of the three men used their ID to authorise her access into the control room. As soon as she set foot inside the room, Hernandez was hurrying her in the direction of a figure huddled over a control panel with her back to them. The Doctor tried to take everything in as they moved. It was a large space, four times the size of the TARDIS control room and far more boring. It was very white, sparse and minimalistic – even more so than her early predecessors TARDIS. At least they had the odd Gallifrayan hexagonal design on the interior wall. The only colour this room has was the blue backlighting from the different control panels.

“Viceroy this woman claims to be THE Doctor” Hernandez introduced her as they came to a halt behind the bent over figure.

The woman slowly straightened herself up and turned to face them. She wasn’t a young woman, possibly in her late fifties or early sixties, her hair a mixture of golden blonde and grey. There were lines around her eyes and forehead that suggested a life full of stress and pressure and she emitted the easy confidence of someone who had been a long time in authority.

The Doctor cocked her head and read the ID badge on the other woman’s uniform.

“Hi Viceroy…Anderson…nice to meet you” she said – sticking her hand out for the other woman to shake.

The Viceroy glanced down at the hand a little wearily but reached out and shook it regardless. She had a good firm grip. You could tell a lot from a handshake and the Doctor already had a good feeling that she’d find this woman far more palatable than the deputy.

“Can you prove you are who you claim to be?” the Viceroy asked calmly.

It was a straightforward question. It deserved a straightforward answer.

“Show me your problem and I’ll prove it by finding the solution” the Doctor smiled.

The older looking woman regarded her for a moment, taking her in and clearly processing what she saw. The Doctor waited patiently, stuffing both hands in her trouser pockets as she waited for the woman to come to a conclusion about her.

After a beat or two the Viceroy nodded, before gesturing for the Doctor to follow her. Hernandez followed too but lingered back a little.

“What systems did you cannibalise from the old base?” the Doctor asked as she followed the other woman.

Viceroy Anderson halted and looked at her oddly, like the question seemed completely unexpected.

“Nothing, it’s a whole new system” the greying woman replied – “the only thing that remains operable is a secondary back up power unit.”

The Doctor didn’t believe for a moment that the only thing in working order below them was a source of ‘emergency’ emergency power. In fact, she knew from her previous scans that someone had gone to great lengths to hide something a couple of hundred feet below their feet. The Doctor DID believe that the Viceroy was telling the truth. She was usually a good judge of character and could feel the base leaders sincere concern about what was happening. If she wanted to get to the truth, she was going to have to try a different line of questioning.

“Your Second Viceroy asked if I was from CAPTO, is that who employs you?” the Doctor asked as they began walking again.

They came to a halt at the central control panel in the room. It resembled a flower, with a central holographic viewer and six petal like consoles surrounding it. It was actually quite beautiful in design, but it would have been even better if it wasn’t so…white. It could do with a splash of purple on the panels, or rainbow stripes – she loved rainbow stripes. Or at least this regeneration did, eyebrows would have a heart attack if he saw this version of himself. 

“It’s the Corporation for Atmospheric Physics in the Troposphere and Ozone – they are to governing body of this base, the four sub bases on the planet and eight satellites” the Viceroy explained.

“Catchy name, no wonder they shortened it” the Doctor quipped.

To be fair she had been expecting something more sinister and less science-y. Something to do with religion or politics, they usually ended up sinister and shady in every corner of the galaxy. Even a scientific organisation would have to be set up like a military operation to ensure the safe and sustainable running of these kind of systems and facilities. It was cutting edge stuff for this part of Earth’s history…or future…depending from which end you looked at it from.

“So, everyone employed on this base is employed and vetted by this governing body?” the Doctor checked.

“Yes” the Viceroy nodded.

That probably put a halt to one of the Doctor’s theories. It was unlikely to be internal sabotage if they monitored, vetted and consistently scanned their staff. Even the control panels had to be accessed by a personal ID password. That meant the system would be recording where people logged on and when. It would make hiding one’s actions over any period of time improbable and probably impossible for current human technology.

It wasn’t all that difficult for the Doctor to bypass though, not when she had a sonic screwdriver just sat in her pocket waiting to be used. The Viceroy had been about to key in an access code for her, but the Doctor got in there first, using her device to bypass not only the first firewall but also the next two layers, allowing her unrestricted access to the entire base database and systems. If the Viceroy wanted proof that she was THE Doctor, then she could have it with a flourish.

The base leader didn’t seem too put out by her actions, instead leaning in curiously closer to see what the Doctor was doing. The older looking woman gave an abbreviated summary of how the dome worked as the Doctor used the touch screen to swipe through the data.

“The dome is a buffer in the ozone layer of the stratosphere, it does this my sensing and countering even the slightest of atmospheric waves. From simple sound waves to large scale Rossby waves.”

The Doctor already knew all of that from the history books. An elegant and simple system – that in centuries to come would be regarded as one of the greatest scientific advances for the human race. Remarkable. Even if it paled to Time Lord technology it was still something to behold.

“It’s brilliant” the Doctor gushed - “but its misbehaving.”

 “Yes, there seems to be a glitch in the system that causes the counter wave to be incorrect” the Viceroy explained - “but there is no consistent pattern or obvious reason for it to be occurring.”

Nothing she had ever read explained the strange data she was currently looking at on the screen.  Not all of it seemed to be relevant to the problem that the Viceroy had mentioned. What was relevant to that was the way that when the system did actively glitch, it looked like a flatlining ESG that suddenly picked up a pulse. Then it flatlined again. Computer glitches tended to happen then stop as suddenly as they started. This had a short period of an escalating pattern before slamming to a stop again. It almost felt organic not mechanical but that didn’t make any sense.

“It’s a bit of a puzzle” the Doctor agreed.

However, right now it was the other readings that were concerning her more because she had seen something similar before. She started to run a scan on her sonic device again. Those reading she had picked up when first arriving on the planet – the ones similar to the time vortex. They had been weak and all around her then, but inside the base they seemed to be much more focussed.

“But according to my sonic…which never lies…well rarely…that is not the only strange thing going on here” the Doctor added.

She threw a pointed look at the Viceroy, hoping for a bit of honesty from the other woman. Viceroy Anderson raised her chin in what the Doctor thought was going to be a defiant manner, but instead evolved into a sharp affirmative nod.

“Come with me” the Viceroy commanded.

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Clara had known it would be hard to concentrate on both the scans and the two men without it being obvious they didn’t have her full focus. So, she had come up with an ingenious solution – and asked for a cup of tea. They were an ex-earth colony, so they were bound to still have tea and coffee.

Ben had gladly got up and headed into the kitchen section. Much to Clara’s relief, Ares stood up and followed him. She could just make out the two men whispering to each other but couldn’t make out any of the words. She was more interested in the scan results from the sonic sunglasses anyway, but she kept a watchful eye on Ares in particular. Clara didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him – and she doubted she could even pick him up.

The initial short-range scan showed what was interfering with the communicators. This area of the old base was protected by a low frequency electromagnetic shield. Its source was somewhere deeper in the old base. Clara understood from the readings that it was designed to not only shield the contents of this base from the new one above but also create a false reading. The people working above them probably had no idea anyone was down here, or that there was power and systems still in use.

She could locate the zone the shield was emanating from but the sonic couldn’t scan inside that zone due to yet another electro-magnetic field. Clara tried to tap into the signal using the sonic sunglasses, but it was impossible to do remotely. She would need to find the shield control panel or the main centralised control panel and do it from there. That would alert the Doctor to whatever was going on underground.

To do that she would have to shake of her two new acquaintances. Preferably she needed to do so in a way that would prevent them following her for a while.

Clara had followed step one of being the Doctor, she now had a degree of control of the situation. The two men were listening to her and allowing her to lead the communication. The next step – well step two of being the Doctor varied depending on the situation – in this case step two was ‘use your enemies’ power against them’.

So, what ‘power’ did these two have that she could utilise?


	7. You Caused This?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All fanfiction authors love comments x

**_“_ _I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying_ _.”_ **

 

_Clara had followed step one of being the Doctor, she now had a degree of control of the situation. The two men were listening to her and allowing her to lead the communication. The next step – well step two of being the Doctor varied depending on the situation – in this case step two was ‘use your enemies power against them’._

_So, what ‘power’ did these two have that she could utilise?_

 

Clara thanked Ben as he places a steaming cup of tea down in front of her. At least, it looked and sort of smelt like tea, but something wasn’t quite right. There had been times when her and the Doctor, or her and Me, had visited long haul flight space ships. They often had what she would consider to be common food or drink, but it was synthesised from other materials to have the same properties. It was never quite the same though – you could always recognise something synthesised by its slightly different smell of texture. Clearly, they didn’t get many opportunities to receive fresh deliveries. The perils of living secretly under another facility she supposed.

Ares remained stood by the kitchen counter, stirring some kind of sweetener into his own drink. As she had observed earlier, both men carried handguns. That gave them an advantage over her, but it wasn’t the main source of her power over her. They knew what was going on down here and were everything was located but she could use the sonic sunglasses to help her do both. No, the real source of their advantage over her was the fact she was alone down there with them. It was likely that the Doctor had her hands full in the base above so no one was going to come to her rescue. She was at their mercy.

That was something she could twist and use to her own advantage. It meant there was also no one to come to their rescue, making them as much at her mercy as she was at theirs.

“Is there a way back up to the new base from here?” Clara asked between sips of her synthetic tea.

“There is a service tube in the emergency generator room just further down the tunnel” Ares responded as he sat back down at the table with his own drink.

Clara caught yet another shifty look between the two men. No doubt they were planning something as they couldn’t let her go back up on the surface. Would they try to wipe her memory? Entrap her permanently down here? Shoot her in the back? Or some other nefarious act that hadn’t crossed her mind yet?

Not that it mattered – they were not the only ones who were scheming.

“Can you take me there?” she inquired innocently - “If there is nothing to see down here then I better take myself up top and take a look up there instead.”

“Of course,” Ares immediately replied.

Clara remained seated for a few moments longer, ignoring the fact her drink was uncomfortably hot and gulping it down in three large mouthfuls. Both men had only taken a sip or two of their own drinks so when she sprung to her feet, they looked caught off guard.

“Right, back to the tunnel did you say?” Clara chirped, wringing her hands together enthusiastically.

She began to bounce towards the door, aware of the sounds of scraping chairs behind her. They were getting up to follow her instantly which meant she would have a matter of seconds to complete her plan.

As soon as she was out of the door, she focussed the sonic sunglasses at it and it began to slide shut behind her.

“Hey!” Ares cried – both men dashing towards the door to try and prevent it shutting completely.

Clara quickly turned her and the sonic devices focus to the panel with the opening button on by the door. She needed to lock them in there, preferably for as long as possible. The panel sparked, a small localised explosion taking place within the door controls and jamming it shut. 

The two men were yelling at her from behind the door, or possibly yelling at each other. She didn’t really care.

“Step two complete” Clara grinned - now it was time to find out what was really going on down here.

The sonic sunglasses led her back out into the dark tunnel structure again, so she turned on her torch and headed in the direction the two men had come from. There were other doors that led off the tunnel, but the strange signal was not being omitted from them. Instead she was being guided deeper and deeper into the old facility, until after about a hundred and fifty yards, the cavernous came to an end. Leading from it was a much smaller corridor, equally as dark, apart from a tiny flashing light on the wall.

Clara shone her torch on it and realised it was a power switch in the off position. The tiny bit of light indicated there was power available here. She had found the other zone of the old base that was still active. Clara flicked the switch and the lights started to come on down the corridor, illuminating one by one until she could see clearly without the torch.

The walls were lined with a sturdy looking steel. It was reminiscent of a submarine – or at least the only one she had been on, when she was chased around by a Martian Ice Warrior. At the bottom of the corridor was an equally sturdy looking door.

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

_“But according to my sonic…which never lies…well rarely…that is not the only strange thing going on here” the Doctor added._

_She threw a pointed look at the Viceroy, hoping for a bit of honesty from the other woman. Viceroy Anderson raised her chin in what the Doctor thought was going to be a defiant manner, but instead evolved into a sharp affirmative nod._

_“Come with me” the Viceroy commanded._

 

The Doctor followed base’s leader out of the control room and down yet another white corridor. The Doctor could feel the vibrations increasing around her, suggesting they were heading in the direction of whatever antimatter device powered the base. There was another strange energy present too, it felt familiar, but she couldn’t place it – but then she had thousands of years of memories to wade through.

They turned down another short stretch of corridor, only for the Doctor to find herself pitched forward, grasping the wall with one hand to keep her upright and the other grasping at her head. That extreme dizzy nausea and splitting headache was back with a vengeance.

_An Earth medieval castle, a crowd, an electric guitar and a tank – that was a melt down and a half. The Doctor had seen a young Davros. The Doctor was conflicted. The Doctor thought he may die. It was a journey he had planned to take alone but then, high up in the turrets of the castle, Clara and Missy had appeared. He’d known they were there immediately. Not just because of the cheap and nasty form of time travel they had used but because it was Clara. He’d played pretty woman. It made her smile._

_‘How did you know I was here? Did you see me?’_

_‘When do I not see you?’_

_Separated from Clara, in the same place but different time periods – him before the land was flooded and her afterwards. A phone call – a terrified Clara, his ‘ghost’ present upon the submerged base, begging him to bend time and space for her. The Doctor would never have done it just to save himself, but to save Clara – to save Clara he would tear time and space apart if he had to._

_‘No. Doctor, I don’t care about your rules or your bloody survivor’s guilt. If you love me in any way, you’ll come back.’_

_The TARDIS, Clara returning home from a school trip. He’d journeyed back in Earth’s history whilst she had been gone, unable to just sit around and wait for her. For him it had been two days not hours since he had seen her. Two days in which he’d faced the realities of making a human immortal – two days that had shown that Clara leaving him, dying, was as inevitable as it was untenable to him._

_‘I’ve missed you, Clara Oswald.’ ‘Oh don’t worry. Daft old man. I’m not going anywhere.’_

_Clara’s arms wrapped around him, holding him tight. They only had a matter of minutes left before the Raven would come for her. It was the moment had had feared ever since meeting her, but especially ever since Trenzalore. The Doctor had wanted to tell Clara how he felt, even though talking about feelings was usually abhorrent to him. She’d stopped him._

_‘Everything you’re about to say, I already know. Don’t do it now. I’ve already had enough bad timing.’_

_In the cloisters on Gallifrey. The Doctor had gone so far to save Clara. Spent billions of years trapped in his own confession dial. Faced down his own people. Rescued her a heartbeat before death. Now he just needed to find his way out of the cloisters again and get them off the planet. The Doctor had tried to underplay what he’d been through but now Clara knew._

_‘Why would you even do that? I was dead. I was dead and gone. Why? Why would you even do that to yourself?’_

_The Doctor faces the wall of Spandium and takes a steadying breath, ready for the agonising moments to come. He begins to strike the wall, every punch making his nerve ending cry out in pain._

_‘The shepherd’s boy says, “There’s this mountain of pure diamond. It takes an hour to climb it, and an hour to go around it. Every hundred years, a little bird comes. It sharpens its beak on the diamond mountain. And when the entire mountain is chiselled away, the first second of eternity will have passed.” You must think that’s a hell of a long time. Personally, I think that’s a hell of a—’_

_The creature wrapped its hands around the Doctor’s head – his head felt like it would explode from the pressure._

The last memory had caused the Doctor to completely slump against the wall. It was the most ill the flashbacks had made her feel yet. Her eyes had been slammed shut but when the feeling subsided slightly, she opened them to find both the Viceroy and the Second Viceroy staring at her. Anderson looked a little concerned for her but they both mainly looked unnerved.  

“Are you okay?” the other woman asked.

The Doctor nodded before standing up taller again and straightening her coat. Her head was still fuzzy, not unlike the period of time after she had regenerated. At least she knew her own name. It was always a pain when she couldn’t remember who she was.

The Viceroy subtly scanned the Doctor with her eyes, clearly dubious as the whether the blonde was really alright…or about to collapse in heap again.

“What I am about to show you is currently top secret” Anderson said firmly - “we haven’t even reported it to CAPTO yet.”

The bases leader may not have directly said it, but the Doctor clearly understood the message. The Viceroy was currently hiding whatever was happening not only from the rest of the base but from the rest of the planet. She was being trusted to keep the secret.

“I don’t answer to CAPTO, or anyone else for that matter” the Doctor replied.

It wasn’t a promise. The Doctor didn’t believe in making promises when she didn’t know all the facts. She also didn’t like having too many people involved in a mystery – they cramped her style and got under her feet. It was enough to assuage any concerns the Viceroy may have, and the grey-haired woman began to walk again. The Doctor fell into step alongside the other woman, more curious than ever about what awaited her.

When they reached the end of the corridor the Viceroy punched a short code into the door panel, causing it to slide open and reveal another smaller control room. There was a glass panel separating the room of from the next chamber which held an antimatter drive the size of an adult giraffe. That was the first thing to catch her attention, probably because it was lit up like a Christmas tree, so her eyes were instantly drawn to it.

“It appeared nearly seven hours ago, just before the glitches began happening” Hernandez stated.

The Doctor followed his gaze, her eyes landing on the source of the strange readings. 

 “Oh no!” she exclaimed – stepping forward to take a closer look.

Across one of the white metallic walls there was something that looked like a crack, a few millimetres wide and around half a metre long. It emitted an ethereal, unnatural glow of light. It wasn’t an ordinary crack – not a break in whatever coated the surface or damage to the panelling. This was something much more complicated and much more sinister. The Doctor had certainly seen it before.

“No no no no” the Doctor mumbled - “that is not good.”

She had seen it on Amy Ponds wall and Trenzalore and had used it to communicate with the lost Time Lords. It had been caused by the Silence blowing up the TARDIS, the event causing elements of time and space that should never have touched to come into contact. This had created a stable time loop. Ironically the Silence, who had been trying to prevent the Doctor contacting the Time Lords, had actually caused a rift that allowed the Doctor to do just that. 

 “You know what it is?” the Viceroy asked.

“In simple terms it’s a crack in the fabric of time and space” she replied.

The Doctor began pacing back and forward between the antimatter drive’s control consoles. Movement – being active – it often helped her think. Movement helps pump adrenaline through your body and adrenaline increases alertness and awareness and can improve memory and cognitive functioning, making you sharper during the period of stress.

“That explains my visions and why the TARDIS brought me here...the hybrid” the blonde muttered to herself.

The Doctor scooted closer to the wall and examined it with her sonic. The crack widened slightly as she drew close to it, causing the light it emitted to increase substantially. The Doctor closed her eyes and took a couple of steps backwards to a safer distance. The readings from her sonic were not good. Unlike last time, this was not a stable tear. There was a clear risk that although it would grow very slowly for a short while, its development would accelerate exponentially sooner rather than later. If that was allowed to happen then it wasn’t just this planet or this galaxy that was at risk - it was the entire dimension.

The only thing the Doctor was sure of after those crippling visions – it had something to do with the hybrid. This was something to do with the Doctor and Clara. Her thought process started to spew out loud as the she began to pace again, her arms flailing and wildly gesturing.

“Why here, why now? It can’t be because we are both here because it happened before we arrived. What is significant about this planet or this galaxy...LOCATION…of course! This planet sits at an equidistant point between Earth and Gallifrey. She died on Earth, I removed her from the time stream in Gallifrey. Both points are at pulling time and space causing it to split at the central point.”

The Doctor came to a halt as she finished that last sentence and stared at the anomaly again. She had answered some questions – or at least was reasonably confident she had done so. There were still many others to answer – many very important questions. She was just about to start pacing again when the Second Viceroy spoke up.

“You caused this?” Hernadez asked – his voice filled with irritation and a hit of surprise.

The Doctor turned back towards the other two people stood in the room with her. Neither of them looked very impressed right now. If she wanted to get finickity about it and go into cause and effect, then in theory the other Time Lords caused it by setting what happened on the trap street in motion. That action had caused a ripple effect with the Doctor making seismic sized waves. She…he…had gone too far though. Further than the Doctor would have ever believed themselves capable. 

“Yes” she sighed – “yes this is partly…mainly…my fault.”

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Clara stood outside the door at the end of the corridor. She had a negative feeling that felt like a lead weight sitting in the pit of her stomach. This feeling said that whatever was hidden behind this door, whatever was shielded inside…well it couldn’t be good.

She focussed the sonic sunglasses at the door panel and waited for the sonic to find a combination of numbers that matched a viable access code. It took around fifteen seconds, which was no surprise as it was looking for a six-number sequence out of ten digits. If Clara’s maths was right (and it usually was) then that meant there were 900,000 possibilities.

There was a loud glaring beeping sound followed by a hiss as the sturdy door slid open to reveal some sort of control room. The lights came on automatically and like the corridor they lit up one by one in sequence until the room was bathed with light. It wasn’t a big room, probably only one part of the old control centre, with tech that wasn’t a million miles away from NASA-esque tech from Clara’s own time period.

There were several individual consoles, some with what looked a little like sonar screens, others with monitors that looked a little like the ones the old TARDIS console used to have – or at least the TARDIS of the two previous regenerations of the Doctor.

Clara pushed the sonic sunglasses up onto her head, so she could take a closer look at the console that seemed to be controlling the shielding that was causing her to lose contact with the Doctor. She tapped the screen to stop it idling and took a look at the readings. It was indeed the correct console, but it was only controlling the shield between this old base and the new one above it. There was another shield active between the room Clara was stood in and a door that seemed to lead to a further control room or possibly a laboratory of some sorts. The door had a bio cleansing device above it, she’d seen them before, but usually in future biological based research facilities. It didn’t make much sense in this context.

She shelved her curiosity about what lay beyond the door for a while, her main priority to turn off this initial shield and get back in touch with the beautiful blonde regeneration of the Doctor. The console was in English, so it wasn’t hard to find her way around the infrastructure of the system and turn the shield off. The only problem was that it needed an encrypted password. This was a much lengthier process than the six-number sequence entrance code.

The process took nearly a minute as Clara eagerly waited for the confirmation that the shield had dropped. The screen flashed blue, and Clara watched the shield strength level on the screen slowly drop until it was offline.

“Doctor?” she asked.

There was a very slight crackle, but the signal didn’t seem to be getting through still. Something was blocking it. Clara checked the shield readings again – it was definitely switched off now, so what was the problem. She scanned around the room with the sonic sunglasses. One possible cause of interference she could detect was the secondary shield. Although it wasn’t blocking the signal between the bases, Clara was stood very close to the edge of the field. The other possibility was more terrifying, that the Doctor was in serious trouble. Clara was going to presume it was the first option.

One solution was to head back out of this section of the old base and back down the tunnel until the interference wasn’t causing an issue any more. That may be a matter of a few steps or a ten-minute walk. Clara had a more inventive idea though – one she hoped might work. The sonic sunglasses were capable of sending all sorts of signals to all sorts of devices. Clara could use the shield emitter she had just shut down to piggy back a simple signal up to the new base. More specifically she was confident she could send it from sonic to sonic.

If she could get the message through, then both sonics should be able to find a frequency that would allow them to pair up and break through the interference. A bit like Bluetooth, but with audio capabilities.

She closed her eyes and thought carefully about what she wanted the message to say. The psychic way in which the sonic operated was amazing and very handy in a tight situation but if she wasn’t careful, she could send the Doctor a little more than she was bargaining for. Clara had once seen a lot more than she had bargained for when she accidently accessed the Doctor’s search history. She shouldn’t have been all that surprised though – he always did seem to enjoy it when she bossed him around.

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

“It’s a long story” the Doctor brushed off as she began pacing again under the Viceroy and Second Viceroy’s watchful glare.

They didn’t look vastly impressed with her lack of explanation, but she really didn’t have time to explain how and when she had previously seen one and how it had all come about this time. Not when the problems she had to solve had just doubled in number.

Perhaps that was it? Had she just answered the second question? Both her and Clara’s TARDIS had clearly brought them to this place because of the rift that was beginning to open. It was a clear message that it was time to fix the mess they – well, the Doctor mainly - had created. It could have brought them there at any time, the crack would be apparent in that location now any time in history or the future. The sentient ships had chosen this time and day for a reason. Was that reason because there was a crisis that needed fixing?

Could both TARDIS be giving them one final adventure together? A parting gift? If the Doctor had realised, she would have never split up and explored separately. She would have eked out every last moment together. She’d have held hands as they ran down the corridor away from the gun wielding security guards or as they explored by the light of Clara’s torch. The Doctor had so many regrets when it came to Clara already, was she now just adding more? Could she face taking her amazing, impossible girl back to Gallifrey and that extraction chamber?

“You said it wasn’t the cause of the glitches, but they only started after it appeared?” the Viceroy asked – breaking the Doctor from her thoughts.

She tried to focus her mind back on the issue at hand. The rift was her and Clara’s problem to rid the universe of. First, the Doctor needed to locate exactly what was causing the atmospheric dome to faulter. The Viceroy was right, the timing between one appearing and the other starting couldn’t be by chance. There was a link – just not an obvious one.

 

“Well it isn’t directly causing the glitches, its currently just sat there spilling out harmless amounts of energy…. for now,” the Doctor tried to explain.

There was no control mechanism she had seen on this base that would be affected by such low amounts of the time vortex energy. Even the antimatter drive, which sat just a few metres away, could withstand over fifty times the amount currently seeping through. By the Doctor’s calculations it could be directly exposed to fifty-two point six times the energy before starting to malfunction. The readings on all the different monitors seemed confirm it was a healthy antimatter drive, working at full capacity.

“I don’t believe in coincidence though, so somehow it is indirectly causing the problem” the Doctor admitted – “and that doesn’t suggest a technological fault but a human one.”

The Doctor had suspected some sort of human involvement all along but now she was certain the issue was with something organic and not mechanical.

“What do you mean?” Hernadez asked – his interest piqued by her suggestion.

He had the poise of a military man and not a scientist. The Doctor had garnered that about him almost immediately after meeting him. That made it little surprise that he would take a back step when discussing anything scientific but step up to the plate when discussing personnel.

“The levels are too low to damage or corrupt any equipment here, but it could have a neurological effect” the Doctor clarified – angling her body towards the man – “it’s been having one on me ever since I landed.”

It hadn’t just stirred up memories in a non-intrusive manner it had caused excruciatingly painful flashbacks. The Doctor was used to pain, she’d regenerated countless times now, one of the most excruciating experiences any living thing could face. Her whole body – all the cells regenerating, remapping and reformulating – creating a whole new physical being. The fact the pain of the flashbacks registered on her scale meant it was pretty damn bad.

Not that it would be that painful for the average human. Time Lords had strong psychic abilities. They couldn’t read minds (although she was a touch telepath), but they could sense and were receptive to psychic signals such as strong emotion. That made her more empathic and therefore more exposed to certain types of energy. It would manifest itself differently in other races – more subtly.  

“Has anyone reported flashbacks, visions, hallucinations? Any problems with behaviour or mood changes within the last few hours?” the Doctor quizzed.  

 “Do you normally try and shoot strangers on site?” she added as an after-thought.  

They hadn’t given her a very friendly welcome at all, but she hadn’t had a chance to contemplate what that meant at the time. Human’s could be suspicious sure but attempting to shoot someone on sight was cold by any race’s standards. Unless you counted the Dalek’s and the Cybermen in of course who killed without thought or feeling.

The Doctor noted that the two bases commanders were looking between each other, their eyes silently communicating something. Concern? Realisation? In the case of the Viceroy there was some surprise perhaps? At least that suggested it wasn’t normal policy to run around shooting visitors – or the odd time travelling intruder. 

“Everyone’s heckles do seem to be up” Hernadez admitted – “but we are running system wide checks and there are no signs of sabotage”

The Doctor was starting to suspect that it was something more complex than a member of staff altering the system. She just couldn’t put her finger on what yet. Nothing she had seen had given her a eureka moment and she was currently left with more questions than answers. More exploring was in order, and access to the control room computers if they would grant it. She also needed to locate Clara and make sure she was safe.

Just as the Doctor was contemplating how she should broach the topic of the old base with the Viceroy when her sonic buzzed in her pocket. She twitched awkwardly, the vibration a little too well placed in her breast pocket. That was never an issue when she was a man.

She grabbed her sonic out of the pocket and looked at it curiously. The device had received a message – an email if she wasn’t mistaken. Not many people knew that it was capable of doing just that. Other than the Doctor herself (or himself in previous regenerations) it was probably only River or…

“Clara! Thank god!” she exclaimed.

The other woman’s timing was impeccable as the Doctor was just starting to panic. The blonde dashed over to the nearest monitor - the two humans watching her sudden burst of life with confusion - and projected the message onto the screen. It was short and succinct, just how the Doctor liked her information to be presented from others. It was hypercritical really when she enjoyed talking so much. She loved a good prattle.

**Base still active and manned by two men who I think may be CAPTO agents? Was shielded from new base but I have dropped shield. Still interference from what looks to be a shielded laboratory. Can you patch through to my signal?**

The Doctor read the message through twice as there was a lot of relevant information in those few sentences. A lot of information that led to one clear conclusion. A conclusion that made her concerned for Clara Oswald’s safety.

“What is it?” the Viceroy asked.

“Horrible feeling the answer isn’t up here” the Doctor winced.


	8. OMDB

**_“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”_ **

 

_“What is it?” the Viceroy asked._

_“Horrible feeling the answer isn’t up here” the Doctor winced._

 

“Do all these consoles have access to the centralised data?” the Doctor asked, as she swiftly sat down at the console with the monitor she had hijacked.

“Yes, why?” Anderson queried.

The Doctor ignored the question and began ferociously tapping keys on the controls in front of her. The centralised mainframe to the base was easy to access but she used the sonic to transverse the internal and enter the external mainframe that the base was linked into. It was CAPTO’s centralised system. It held all the details about the bases function and who was employed there.

“Why are you hacking into our personnel files?” Hernadez asked – lingering over her shoulder to take a closer look at what she was up to.

The Doctor was following up Clara’s lead about the old base being manned. If the brunette was right and they were CAPTO agents, then they had to be on the system somewhere. There had to be evidence of them. It only took her exactly thirty-six seconds to find an anomaly in the personnel logs. There was practically smoke billowing off her fingers she was working so quickly.

“You only have sixteen staff members registered on the base?” she checked with the Second Viceroy.

“That’s right” Hernandez instantly confirmed.

The Doctor angled the screen so her could see it more clearly. His eyes widened as soon as he realised what she had found.

“CAPTO have eighteen people currently assigned here” she said for the Viceroy’s benefit.

The other woman had been hanging back slightly but she was soon over the Doctor’s other shoulder, looking at the data for herself. The Viceroy leant over the Doctor and tapped a couple of buttons, starting a cross check on the assigned staff members to find the two interlopers.

“The irregularity in the supplies I spotted…” Hernandez muttered in the Viceroy’s direction.

The Doctor leant back in her seat, so she could see both of them and looked at Anderson questioningly.

“Hernandez has noted several small irregularities but…” the woman began to explain – before trailing off into silence.

“But?” the Doctor encouraged.

She needed to know if she could trust either or both of the two humans she was with. Despite her initial negative impression of the Second Viceroy, his shock and frustration were written across his face. The Doctor was sure that he was not part of any conspiracy. She had a question mark over the Viceroy though because her reaction had been much more muted and her mood more on an even keel.

“We are both from a military background” Anderson admitted reluctantly – her expression suggesting she was disappointed with herself and her own answer.

The Doctor clearly understood the implication.

“Trained not to ask questions unless people’s safety is compromised” the blonde sighed.

If CAPTO employed scientists in the positions of management then their naturally inquisitive little minds would follow up anything that didn’t fit an expected pattern, even if they were told not too by the powers that be. Employing ex-military figures into management positions meant that they wouldn’t question anything too deeply especially when instructed not too. It was a clever strategy. It was one of the reason’s the Doctor wasn’t a big fan of soldiers, not since the Time War anyway. There were some notable exceptions throughout history. The Brigadier, for example, who was as capable of asking important questions and he was in taking instruction. His daughter, Kate Letherbridge-Stewart, had inherited those better qualities of a soldier plus a scientific and adaptable mind. She should really drop in on UNIT at some point and see what Kate and Osgood made of the new look.

The Viceroy’s search results flashed up on the screen, drawing all three sets of eyes back to the monitor. It had isolated two men who were not currently registered as being present by the bases system but registered at present by the external mainframe. They were called Doctor Ares Zouma and Doctor Ben Mendelsohn and according to their files they had top level security clearance. One was a meteorologist and astrophysicist, the other a medical doctor specialising in neuroscience.  

“They are scientists” Anderson said blankly - “why on earth would CAPTO have scientists hiding beneath us?”

“I know one way to find out” the Doctor grinned.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Clara had decided it was best not to try and use the sonic sunglasses again whilst she awaited an answer from the Doctor. Instead she relaxed back on the chair in front of the shield control panel, ate a Berisian snack bar she had stored away in her jacket pocket and took in her surroundings.  She couldn’t place her finger on why, but there was a very negative atmosphere in the room. There was a sadness in the air, but she couldn’t understand how a room could feel sad. She just knew that it did and that it wasn’t just because the walls were grey and drab.

“Clara can you hear me?” the Doctor’s new feminine voice suddenly rang out in her ear.

The brunette instantly sprung upright in her seat, her own mood lifted despite the feeling lingering around her.

“Yes!” Clara enthused - “it’s good to hear your voice!”

Even if it wasn’t the voice she had gotten so used too. The voice she had come to love more than anything in the universe.

“Yours too” the blonde replied sincerely.

At least the Doctor was safe and had received the message - as short and sweet as it was. She could hear frantic typing in the background from either the other woman or someone she was with. Hopefully the Doctor was now in the control room of the new base, and able to influence whatever was happening down below.

“I’m in a control room with systems that still appear to be in operation” Clara started to describe her surroundings - “there is a sealed door to what looks like a biolab leading from this room and its shielded.”

She stood up and stepped a bit closer to the lab door, looking for any evidence of what was inside. There was no writing or any other obvious markings – no other clue except the bio cleansing device. The faint sound of typing had continued throughout her description but then it came to a halt, just leaving silence. There were usually two types of silence, the comfortable kind when no one feels the need to speak and the awkward sign when something bad was happening. Sadly, she was confident this was the negative type.

“Clara” the Doctor started slowly – “CAPTO have employed your two friends on something called the Organic Meteorological Differentiator & Barometer.”

Clara’s first reaction was that niggling feeling you get, like alarm bells ringing between your ears. It took a few seconds for it to sink in why. It wasn’t just the troubling use of the word ‘organic’, it was the anacronym the words spelt out.

“OMDB” she said out loud - “the zone that still had power was called OMDB.”

So that project Ares and Ben were part of was not a new thing but something that was as old as the original base. Did that mean that throughout the whole time the new base was in operation, the base below had been secretly manned too? Why an earth would they need another meteoritical barometer in work down here when that was the purpose of the building above?

“Clara listen to me, there is nothing on the system about the project” the Doctor added - “whatever it is it’s so secret that they daren’t risk ANYONE accessing it.”

What was happening down here that required THAT kind of secrecy? How terrible was that secret likely to be?

“Doctor, I don’t like the sound of this” she voiced her concerns out loud.

“No neither do I” the Doctor sighed.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

The Doctor could hear the concern lacing Clara’s voice. It wasn’t fear, but the other woman was scared – not for her own safety, but at what may be on the other side of that shielded door. The Doctor had put her finger on the possibility when she had realised the correlation between the rift and the start of the systemic glitches. Now she was confident that she knew what the ‘Organic Meteorological Differentiator & Barometer’ entailed.

As she was speaking to Clara, Second Viceroy Hernandez had moved away from the Doctor to another computer station. She had payed him very little mind – attention focussed on Clara and the CAPTO database she was happily hacking. He and the Viceroy could hear every word of the conversation because the Doctor had projected it through the computer console. 

“Now the shield between the two facilities has been dropped I have isolated the source of the signal that’s causing the dome to malfunction” Hernandez cut in - “it’s being emitted from the old base, but I don’t understand exactly what it is.”

The Doctor stood up and looked over his shoulder at the screen. Now Clara had taken down the shield between the two bases they could see the structure of what them was below. They could see the two life forms in one zone and Clara’s reading, which was flashing in and out. The new bases scanners were not remotely penetrating that shield, but Hernandez was right, there was a signal emanating from that location. It wasn’t the standard oscillating electrical impulses you would expect to see in a computer system but an infrequent electromagnetic pulse.

“I can see fluctuating readings for something called trans-temporal activity” Clara’s agreed - “Is that something to do with ESP?”

The brunette hadn’t lost any of her mental acuity over the last few decades, she was as brilliant and sharp as ever. Trans-temporal activity was meant to be a marker of extrasensory perception, associated with precognition or even retrocognition. Or to put it more crudely, psychic energy.

 “Yes” she replied steadily.

The brunette didn’t reply, probably because she was mulling over all the horrible possibilities. They wouldn’t know for sure until they saw inside that laboratory. With the shield up that was going to be impossible from up in the new base. Even the Doctor’s sonic was useless from this kind of range, it needed direct access to the control panel.

“Clara can you shut down the shield, so we can scan inside?” the Doctor asked.

There was a pause as the brunette moved about, deep breaths and the faint sound of typing the only noise.

“Not from outside” Clara sighed.

The Doctor gritted her teeth. Of course, the designers had made it impossible to drop the shield from outside. Without a sonic device, it would be virtually impossible to break the access code to the lab. If you couldn’t get in and you couldn’t drop the shields, then he laboratory was an impenetrable fortress to both man and machine. Clara did have a sonic device though – she had given the brunette her sunglasses. She loved those sunglasses. They just weren’t very HER anymore. Pity.

The Doctor dragged her mind back on track and stepped away from both the seated Hernandez and the Viceroy. There was no need – they could both here the conversation clearly across the speaker on the console – but it gave the illusion of a little privacy.

“Clara, you know what I have to ask you?” the Doctor probed gently.

She wondered if Clara and Ashildir got into adventures like this together or did they just hop around seeing amazing things? Did Ashildir ever ask Clara to do things that would undoubtedly be upsetting or distasteful? Looking back over their time together, it felt like the Doctor had constantly asked so much of her. Clara was brilliant and she…he…they…had expected so much of her – because she had always delivered, with bells on.

“I know” the brunette murmured.

Brave Clara. She had always been so ridiculously brave – in every adventure and in every echo. Millions of Clara’s spread across a timeline that could potentially span thousands and thousands of years. It made the Doctor recall the Rings of Akaten and the speech she had given that saved whole worlds and universes. The leaf that didn’t represent the memories it held but all the infinity of potentials that could have been. The moment fascination had spilled over into absolute adoration.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Clara wasn’t a fool. She had put the limited information they had together and deduced that there was something living – or that had once lived – behind the door she was now facing. It was the Doctor’s wishes that she entered the lab and reveal once and for all what was happening in this old underground base. As much as Clara dreaded the answer, curiosity would always win, even without the Doctor’s orders. She couldn’t resist a mystery – it had been both her salvation and her downfall.

Clara placed the sonic sunglasses on briefly – just long enough to give them their instructions, before folding them back into her leather jacket’s right pocket. It was another encoded door but the sonic now had a viable high clearance pass code from the previous door it had opened for her, so the lock opened with a loud clunk instantly.

Clara closed her eyes and took a deep breath before grasping the handle on the door and pulling it towards her. It was heavy and required a second good pull with a bit more force behind it. As the door ground open, she felt a light mist around her, it smelt and tasted clean (if that made sense). She’d been disinfected by the bio-cleanser devise. It meant she’d smell like a hospital for days.

She took a step into the room, then another…then another – trying to take in her surroundings as she moved. It appeared to be a thin strip of a room with a metal wall to her right and more control panels to her left. So far it wasn’t offering up as much of an explanation as expected.

She stepped over to the computer system in front of her and tapped the touchscreen monitor embedded into the console with the tips of her fingers. As she had expected, it had been idling, and as soon as she touched it the screen lit up.

There was some sort of data being displayed on it, set up like one of those programs where people mix their own music. There were two strips of what she initially presumed were sound patterns across the top of the screen and below there were three small squares and three rectangles. Only on closer inspection she realised that they were not sound waves she was looking at.

“Oh god there is a screen here showing what looks like vital signs” Clara gulped.

Those sound waves were heart rate and blood oxygen levels, the other boxes contained information such as temperature, carbon dioxide levels, blood pressure and measure of the electrical impulses within the brain.

Clara had expected to find some sort of giant alien brain plugged up to a supercomputer, but brains didn’t have a heart rate. She was no medical doctor, but those looked like the vitals of a whole human being.

As this dawned on Clara, so did the realisation that the room shape didn’t make sense. The left wall seemed to be a continuation of the shape of the control room but the right wall – well it was in a strange place and was made out of a different material. She stepped closer to it and pressed the palm of her hand flat against it. The metal wasn’t thick like that of a submarine like the other walls of this section. In fact, it wasn’t just one piece of metal but many thin horizontal slats, like the shutter to an old earth shop.

Not all of the right ‘wall’ was made of this material though. About a meter width at the end of the room was the thick metal plating again. On that wall was a simple lever, currently in the down position. It was just calling out for Clara to pull it up – which would either remove the thin wall panelling or turn of the power – she wasn’t a hundred percent sure which yet.

Either way it was basically one of those ‘big red buttons’ that an adventurer couldn’t resist pressing. So, Clara strode across the remainder of the room and grasped the lever, firmly flipping it up before she had time to reconsider. The lights remained on but with a sound that resembled a growl, the shutters began to slowly slide up.

There was some sort of tank being revealed, filled with a liquid that was a dark blue colour. It was similar to water infused with those scented toilet blocks – the ones that dyed your hand blue if you touched them. That wasn’t all that filled the tank. As the shutters crept up, she could see the form of a human being appearing, seemingly floating in an upright position. It was like they were being held in that position by an invisible force.

It was a man with black hair, completely naked and skin that was so pale it was almost translucent. His eyes were shut but she could faintly make out the rise and fall of his chest. There were several wires and tubes that emerged from the walls of the tank and connected to him. Air bubbles rose out of the small ventilator that covered his mouth and nose.

Clara had barely taken a breath since the shutters began to open and her mouth was becoming uncomfortably dry. Those negative feelings she had felt before had now multiplied to the point where she could feel tears pooling and stinging at the corner of her eyes.

“Doctor there is a person in here, in a sort of stasis cell but wired up to everything” she said, her voice quavering – “why would anyone…?”

Her voice trailed off as she shuddered involuntarily. The overwhelming sadness- no misery – she was feeling was almost unbearable. It couldn’t all be her own emotions, for as sickened and sad as it was, she had seen far worse on her travels. The emotion was coming from him – the one in the tank. Somehow those feelings were being psychically projected out across the base and she was stood right next to it.

“Machines can break” the Doctor surmised gently - “they can malfunction, and they only work against predictable preprogramed patterns. So, they created a human fail safe, an empath who could step in where technology failed. Except now it’s become a sort of ghost in the machine.”

According to the Doctor this base had been functioning for hundreds of years. There were obviously people maintaining it. What had gone wrong? Why was this empath now not completing his purpose when he had done so for all this time?

“Why now?” Clara asked the Doctor.

There was a pregnant pause as she awaited her answer. It was never a good sign when the Doctor was quiet. If the Time Lord didn’t know the answer, they would begin to verbally reason it out, their thought process spilling out like words across a page. It was when the Doctor knew but didn’t want to tell you – that was when you worried.

“That’s a good question” the blonde eventually replied, clearly deflecting - “I promise you there is a good, or bad – depending on how you look at it – answer. I just don’t want to discuss it over the phone.”

That wasn’t a satisfactory answer. Not for Clara. When they had kept secrets from each other before – well it had never ended well. Thy had spent months apart pretending that each was happy so the other could go without guilt, when in truth neither was fine and desperately needed the other. Not being open and honest had caused her death on the trap street, had nearly led to him wiping her memory. She had always sworn to herself if she ever saw him…her…again, then there would be no more secrets between them.

“We are not on the phone” she chided.

Clara had every intention of pressing for an answer and was about to unleash her best English teacher voice (even if she was a bit out of practise). A slight movement out of the corner of her eye made the words die in her throat. She could have sworn she’d seen the empath’s hand twitch.

Clara stepped closer to the tank, so she could get a better look. There was another twitch – this time the muscles in his brow flickered and creased slightly. Then there was a much more obvious movement which caused her to stumble backwards away from the tank. Her face no doubt mirroring the horror of the person she saw before her.

“Oh god” Clara choked, clasping her hand over her mouth – “Doctor his eyes have just opened.”


	9. Never be cruel and never be cowardly

_“Goodness is about character - integrity, honesty, kindness, generosity, moral courage, and the like. More than anything else, it is about how we treat other people.”_

 

The Doctor doubted the empath meant Clara any physical harm, but she was worried about what kind or mental or emotional effects the brunette may be subjected to. She suspected the empath had been held in some sort of sleep state, with only the brain functioning and the body purely acting as a life support system. Only now, because of the rift, that body had woken up. He would be terrified and suffering. The Doctor needed to get to Clara and fast.

“How do I get down there?” she snapped at the Viceroy and Second Viceroy.

Both of them pointed to a panel in the floor in the corner of the room. It looked like some sort of service hatch and had a warning sticker on it. The Doctor liked warning stickers – one of her favourite hobbies was to ignore them.

“That hatch is a maintenance shaft down to an emergency generator stored in the old base. It’s the only active room down there – or at least we thought it was” Anderson answered – “but it’s a hell of a climb down on an old metal ladder.”

This body had been up and down plenty of ladders, even before she had finished regenerating. If she could climb a crane and jump from one to another when she couldn’t even remember her own name to save a stranger, she could descend a hundred feet down a shaft to save the woman she loved.

“Clara I’m on my way” the Doctor declared.

She was already half way to the hatch when Hernandez suddenly called out to her. The Doctor swung back around to face him.

“Wait, I’m coming with you” he stated - “The two scientists from CAPTO – they are bypassing the locking mechanism as we speak.”

That was not the sort of news the Doctor needed to hear. Clara may well be in physical danger too once they had freed themselves. The two scientists had no way of knowing that Clara was in touch with the base above. They may think that by killing her they kept their dark secret safe.

Hernandez seemed to know exactly what she was thinking and reached out to press a steadying hand against her shoulder.

“You find your friend and I will deal with them” he encouraged.

The Doctor smiled at him before returning to the task at hand. There was a circle on the panel where the metal was ridged and not smooth. The Doctor placed the palm of her hand against it and with one twist of the wrist the circle turned with a grind and then a pop. The panel opened, lifting from one side, the other hinged to the floor.

As soon as the hatch opened enough for the Doctor to fit through, she slit her lithe body through the gap and began her descent. Hernandez was hot on her heels, but he was much taller and heavier than her, so she was quicker and more agile.

“Is this how humans populated the universe?” Clara finally spoke up again - “our brilliant step forward came at the cost of enslaving a human mind indefinitely?”

The Doctor paused briefly – jamming her eyes shut and taking a deep breath. The emotion in the brunette’s voice was strong enough for even the normally socially inept Doctor to pick up. As she feared, Clara was at ground zero and she was strongly feeling the effects of the empath. The brunette was right though, this wasn’t what the human races glorious history books had described.

“Not so brilliant now I know the finer details” the Doctor agreed, as she started to climb again - “more…terrible and dastardly. Oh! That’s a good word - dastardly. I’ll definitely use that one again.”

Her brain had wandered again, this time at a really inappropriate moment. It was a good word though. There were a few good English words that began with D. Demonstrably was another great one she should really fit into conversation a bit more.

“Doctor” Clara clucked.

It never failed to make her cringe. It was the brunette’s best teacher tone and had been used on her effectively across three regenerations now. That she knew of anyway, it was possible Clara’s echoes had chastised every single one of her previous faces.

“I’m on my way” she said in lieu of an apology.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

There was a feeling in the pit of her stomach that Clara couldn’t shake as she stood, face to face with the submerged man. She felt like she might be sick, but she also felt pain, even though she wasn’t in pain. It was like a throbbing at her temple’s, the sort of thing you got if you stared at a computer for too long. Clara hadn’t felt anything like it in years, not since she’d died on the trap street. Her body, trapped a heartbeat from death, wasn’t affected by such things.

The man’s eyes gazed at her, occasionally blinking and fingers twitching. It didn’t appear like he could move any of his limbs which wasn’t a surprise considering the muscle wastage he must be suffering. Clara doubted he could even talk if he wanted too, especially with the ventilator on. That didn’t mean she couldn’t try and communicate with him.

“Can you hear me?” she asked.

**_Yes_ **

His voice echoed in her head. It was like listening to someone across a weak phone line. It sounded distant and distorted. The sensation was strange and a little bit uncomfortable, but at least they could communicate.

Clara glanced at the screen with his vital signs on. Now he was awake most of them had increased in rate a small amount, but the trans-temporal activity had increased significantly. She wondered if the computer was just recording the telepathy or somehow enhancing it.

**_Help me_ **

Clara turned her attention completely back to him and stepped forward, pressing her palm against the tank. Now she was closer she could see the fear in his eyes and it matched the churning feeling in her stomach. No doubt the two were linked.

“To help you I need to understand” she replied softly - “did you agree to this?”

**_NO!_ **

His voice, now much clearer, felt like it was rattling around every corner of her mind. His raised voice echoing like a dropped stone in a mausoleum. It made her head pound, like someone had hit her across the brow and she pressed her hand to her forehead to try and alleviate the pressure.

“Don’t shout, please don’t shout” Clara pleaded.

The feeling instantly subsided back to a dull ache again, the empath clearly not meaning to cause her any harm. That was good, but it did make her worry about how the Doctor would cope. Clara knew that the Doctor was capable of touch telepathy and was more sensitive to telepathy than the average human. She wasn’t sure if that meant the Doctor would find it easier to handle or much harder.

**_Pain_ **

Oh, she knew he was in pain, both physically and emotionally – she could feel it. Hearing the desperation in his projected voice really brought it home though.  

“Is there something I can do…” Clara began to ask.

**_Release me_ **

A pleading voice cut her off.

Clara hadn’t seen any mechanism that looked like it would open the tank although no doubt it could be done remotely by the computer. Or perhaps not, it depended how determined the creators of this monstrosity were to prevent a bit of goddamn morality coming to his rescue. Even if it could be opened, would it be possible for him to leave the tank now. She looked from his pale, wasted figure and back to the vital signs. She very much doubted it.

“I don’t think you’d survive outside of the stasis fluid now” Clara replied honestly.

There was no point hiding the truth from him. Hope could motivate someone to stand their ground against the impossible, it could motivate them to do amazing things – but it was a dangerous thing on the scaffold. That was according to the sisters of Kahn anyway.

**_Release me_ **

He repeated his plea again, this time more desperate. All ten of his fingers twitched as he tried to gesture, and Clara could feel the pressure in her head rising again – signalling that he was getting more distressed again. That feeling of fear she had felt I the pit of her stomach didn’t rise though. The prospect didn’t scare him anywhere near as much as living did.

“You don’t want to survive” she stated sadly.

His eyes held a look of doleful acceptance. Clara wondered what sort of horror he had lived for hundreds of years for him to be so at peace with the idea of his own death – to wish for it. She didn’t want to leave him suffering but helping someone die - to form the act of Euthenasia – it wasn’t something she had ever had to do before. Clara had seen many men, women and children die and been unable to prevent it. That was hard enough to live with – but to take direct action to end a life?

**_Mercy_ **

The empath begged, obviously able to sense or even hear her indecision. Clara wondered quite how psychic he was – had he reached into her mind and picked out a word that he knew would make her take notice or was it just pot luck? It was the word that had saved her life after Missy had trapped her inside a Dalek on Skaro. The word that had made the Doctor pause and save her, rather than destroy her. Mercy was kind and mercy was brave.

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

The Doctor and Hernandez had gone their separate ways as soon as they entered the tunnel. The Second Viceroy had headed right towards the living space to intercept the escaping CAPTO scientists. He looked really quite angry about what was happening although the Doctor wasn’t sure if it was because of what had been done to the empath or the fact the two men had the audacity to live in secret under his base. Either way the Doctor suspected the two scientists were in for a nasty surprise.

She had gone left, running down the tunnel using her sonic and the light emanating from the corridor she was approaching to avoid falling flat on her face. She had slowed to a walk as soon as she reached that corridor – weary of startling either Clara or the empath. The control room was easy to access. The sonic sunglasses had already identified an access code and the devices were paired. Same software, different outfit.

The door between the control room and laboratory was still open, and the Doctor could hear Clara talking. The earpieces, like the sonic devices themselves were psychically controlled so only projected sound if that was the person’s intention. Clara wasn’t talking to her, which meant the brunette was talking to the empath.

“I was given some advice once from someone who was…is very dear to me” Clara was saying.

Clara was stood against the glass of the tank, facing the man who was completely submerged in a liquid that obviously produced chemically induced suspended animation. NASA had spent years experimenting with hydrogen sulphide so no doubt they had perfected the process.

The Doctor leant on the doorframe, intrigued by what the other woman was going to say and not wanting to distract her. Neither Clara or the empath gave any signs of knowing she was there, but the Doctor could feel the empath, so no doubt he could feel her presence too. Clara had him enraptured – something she was very good at.

“Run like hell, because you always need to. Laugh at everything, because it's always funny. Never be cruel and never be cowardly. And if you ever are, always make amends.”

The Doctor recognised her own words from many years ago. The last words her former regeneration had spoken to Clara before his memory was wiped. Well, nearly his last words, he’d asked for a smile and warned her off squishy fruit too. She still loved Clara’s smile…wasn’t too sure how she felt about the fruit…she’d have to test that at some point.

“Never eat pears” the Doctor added – “I told you to write that one down.”

Clara swung around to look at her and smiled. It was a warm, genuine smile, but there was a ruefulness there. Letting each other go had been hard but the Doctor had instantly forgotten it, poor Clara had probably replayed that moment over again and again for years. She wondered if the brunette had ever regretted being the one who remembered?

“You forgot the most important one” Clara said, her voice little more than a whisper – “always be a Doctor.”

“Always” the Doctor agreed.

That had been Clara’s last message to her, written on the chalk board in the TARDIS. _Run you clever boy and be a Doctor._ It had been her parting message on the trap street before facing the raven. More importantly, it had been the words Clara had used to make a younger Doctor pause, to stop and reconsider the destruction of Gallifrey. She had helped them rewrite history, a history which had haunted previous regenerations. On Trenzalore Clara had physically saved her on two separate occasions. On Gallifrey Clara had saved her soul.

Now, the Doctor knew that Clara wanted to save this man. If only that were possible. Hydrogen Sulphide could only hold someone in suspended animation for a matter of days before causing irreparable cell damage. What had preserved him had also been killing him. It had been killing him for three hundred years.

“He wants to be released” Clara explained - “he knows that it will kill him.”

The Doctor nodded at the brunette before stepping further into the room to stand at Clara’s side. They both looked into the tank, the Doctor even more sickened when she got a closer view of the empath’s form and pallor. She had been able to feel his despair and pain from half way down the tunnel, now she was in the same room as him it was stifling.

“What is your name?” she asked.

**_Stavos_ **

The Doctor’s whole body swayed at his telepathic communication, her head swimming with all his awful emotions. She wasn’t human, she was a Time Lord, and Time Lords were very receptive to all forms of trans-temporal energy. Even though he was only trying to project the words into her head it held the flood gates open for everything else to enter too.

**_HELP ME_ **

This time it was more like a telepathic shout and it caused the Doctor’s knees to buckle. There was a searing pain in her head, not unlike that of the act of cellular regeneration. That was what he felt – his whole bodies cells being mutated and damaged by the acidic substance.

Clara’s arms wrapped around her shoulders as she crashed down onto her knees. She could barely register Clara’s worried voice as memories began to flash through her head again.

_Ashildir had died protecting her Viking village and the Doctor was angry. Angry of losing people…angry that one day it could be Clara. He wasn’t ready to lose her, not now, not ever. She was there too, trying to calm him, trying to find a solution._

_‘Look at you, with your eyes. Your never-giving-up. Your anger. Your kindness. And one day, the memory of that will hurt so much that I won’t be able to breathe, and I’ll do what I always do. I’ll get in my box and I’ll run, and I’ll run. In case all the pain ever catches up in every place I go. It will be there.’_

_She’d died. Clara had died. He hadn’t run. He’d fought. She’d asked him not to be a warrior but instead he had taken on his own planet just to try and get her back. Billions of years in a confessional dial, dying over and over again. Just for her. Only for her._

_‘No. Why would you even do that? I was dead. I was dead and gone. Why? Why would you even do that to yourself?’_

_Because of love. For what other reason did anyone do anything so crazy?_

The memories subsided, and the Doctor gasped in as much air as possible. As she came back into her surroundings, she realised that Clara still had both arms wrapped around her shoulders with her forehead pressed against the Doctor’s left temple. It was comforting, especially after what she had just relived, and she leant into the contact – enjoying the warmth and familiarity it brought despite the lack of heartbeat.

 “Are you okay?” the brunette asked in little more than a whisper.

The Doctor could hear the concern lacing Clara’s voice even though she couldn’t see her face. The blonde grasped one of the other woman’s hands from her own shoulder and brought it to her mouth, placing a soft kiss against Clara’s palm. The act was for her own comfort as much as it was for the brunette’s.

“He’s in agony” the Doctor said sadly.

The Doctor dragged herself back up onto her feet with a little help from the other woman, who gently tugged at one of her elbows.

“What caused him to wake up?” Clara asked as soon as the Doctor was safely upright again.

The blonde hadn’t wanted to deal with the topic of the rift yet. She’d wanted to solve this problem and then have a little time to break the news to Clara. Or perhaps it was just a way to delay the inevitable. She’d never been very good at facing or excepting the reality of losing Clara, even the echo she had met first in Victorian London.

“We did” the Doctor admitted glumly - “it’s my fault…I went too far.”

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Clara didn’t fully understand what was happening, but she had the gist of it. Those words – they brought back the memory of a moment she had relived in her head time and time again. The moment the Doctor fell to his knees in front of her, just seconds before losing both his consciousness and his memories of her.

_‘It’s okay. It’s okay. I went too far. I broke all my own rules. I became the Hybrid. This is right. I accept it.’_

Somehow this planet was being affected by the Doctor’s actions on Gallifrey, by her continued existence outside of the extraction chamber.

The Doctor didn’t seem to be in any rush to discuss it further and had turned away to look at the computer consoles. Clara watched out of the corner of her eye as the blonde leant one arm on the back of the chair and began to tap random controls. The vitals remained on one screen, whilst on the other, she could see the Doctor was accessing other information.

 Clara suspected the Doctor was assessing the situation. There was a niggling fear at the back of her mind that they may be forced to sacrifice one for the good of the many and put Stavos back in the controlled coma he had been in previously.

“Will the dome still function without him?” she questioned.

 The Doctor tapped another couple of buttons before looking back over her shoulder. The blonde’s gaze fell upon the empath first, her look almost apologetic, before focussing on Clara.

“Yes, it’s been functioning without him for years” the Doctor assuaged her fears - “he’s just been left as a failsafe, in case of a system fault.”

Clara felt like she was going to be sick again but this time it was as much her own disgust as it was Stavos’ distress. How could those who made decisions at CAPTO have allowed this to continue? It was terrible that someone had put him in there in the first place, but she was more disgusted with the many generations who had let it carry on.

The Doctor turned back to the computers briefly, typing in another couple of instructions into the console. The next time she turned back towards them was to address Stavos.

“I can override the system, drain the fluid from the tank and turn off the machines that are sustaining you” the Doctor explained - “Or I can send an electrical impulse through the life support system that will stop your heart immediately. The liquid you are surrounded in will act as a superconductor.”

These were the moments – the decisions – that had sometimes made it hard travelling with the Doctor. The Time Lord was capable of switching off emotion when the situation called for some cool detachment. Somewhere along the line Clara had picked up the skill but she had never been able to master it to the extent that the Doctor had. Perhaps if she lived another two thousand years, she’d have it down to a fine art too. She would be able to stand there and offer a slow death or a quick one like she was asking you to decide between tea or coffee.

That wasn’t really a fair assessment though because behind that calm detached voice were deep sad brown eyes. She had noticed the Time Lord seemed sadder, despite the cheerier exterior, than the last regeneration. They were more like the eyes of the first Doctor she had travelled with, when he held all that sorrow about the time war and the destruction of his own people. Clara wondered what had happened to cause that haunted look again – it couldn’t just be because of her ‘death’.

**_Impulse_ **

The empath’s voice rang out in her head again. Stavos had made his choice and she couldn’t blame him. It was the faster option for him, but it would be more like witnessing an execution rather than an act of euthanasia for her and the Doctor. In theory Clara could go and wait in the other room and not witness a thing – just leave the Doctor to press the buttons. If it was her though - if she had spent hundreds of years alone in suspended animation, she’d want people with her for the final moments. Clara had wanted to face the raven alone to spare the Doctor, but she had known he was behind her anyway and it had given her great comfort.

“Are you ready?” the Time Lord double checked with the empath.

Clara wondered if he would have any last words. There would be no family to give a message too, or at least none that would remember him.

**_Yes - thank you_ **

Clara smiled at Stavos even though she wasn’t sure if he could actually see her. When she turned back to look at the Doctor the other woman gave her a sad smile. The blonde tapped a command into the keyboard of the computer console before taking a step towards the tank. The Time Lord was now stood just behind Clara and to her left.

She felt a soft warm hand slide into her own and link their fingers together, before the Doctor tugged her back a step so she was further away from the tank. Clara had held hands with the Doctor before, when they were running or when there was a risk of them getting separated. Those hands had been bigger and rougher.

For a few seconds they stood holding hands with little seeming to happen. Clara was about to ask the Doctor if she had pressed the right button when there was a flash of blue light in front of them, like a rod of lightening – so bright Clara had to shield her eyes with her free hand.

Then the whole tank seemed to glow with a bright white light, whatever was in the fluid reacting to the heat produced by the electrical impulse. It would have been spectacular if it didn’t mark another person’s death. That terrible negative feeling that Stavos had been projecting was lifting, leaving her with simply her own sorrow and grief at seeing another human being suffer so horribly. A single hot tear ran unbidden down her cheek for him and she sniffed back any others from following.

Clara glanced at the Doctor, who was staring solemnly forward – beautiful in her quiet, understated mourning. The liquid began to lose its luminosity, leaving it colourless like water. Stavos lifeless body remained upright but his limbs were limp, and his head flopped forward. He was gone – and mercifully quickly. Clara had expected something a little more horrific, like something from the Green Mile. Instead the Doctor had managed to give him a dignified and fast end.

“That pep talk I gave you…I gave myself the same one before I regenerated” the Time Lord spoke up after a short period of respectful silence - “I added a bit more onto it though.”

Clara glanced at the other woman again, waiting for her to continue. The Doctor was still looking into the tank but as soon as she felt Clara’s eyes on her, she glanced down at their joined hands. The blonde lifted their joined hands, so they were midriff height and began to gently run the pad of her thumb along Clara’s own digit.

“Hate is always foolish, and love is always wise. Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind.”

Clara wasn’t sure about love always being wise. Some would say that running away with a madman in a blue box wasn’t wise, but she had done that for love. The Doctor had gone to the end of the universe to save her and that certainly hadn’t been wise. Hate was always foolish though and she always strived to be kind. That was the point of what the Doctor was trying to say she supposed. That their action, in releasing Stavos, had been a kindness.

Clara squeezed the Doctor’s hand in acknowledgement before resting her head against the other woman’s shoulder. She knew there was more to come – that the Time Lord hadn’t told her everything yet. Clara just wanted this moment, just a minute, when she could close her eyes and just ‘be’ with the Doctor.


	10. The Bleak Reality

_‘True love is selfless, its prepared to sacrifice.’_

 

The climb up the access tube into the main facility felt like it dragged on and on. Clara felt emotionally drained by the events of the day and she still didn’t have any answers from the Doctor. The other woman had simply asked her to come with her, so Clara had followed.

The Doctor was climbing just ahead of her, the Time Lords long light blue coat blocking most of Clara’s view when she looked up. Then the other woman was climbing out of the tube, revealing a more futuristic control room with white walls. Clara wasn’t even fully out of the tube when she heard someone address them.

“Doctor” a woman with greying hair greeted - “Hernandez has arrested our two guests.”

As Clara rose to her feet and stretched her limbs out after the climb, she noted that the woman, who was older than what she would class as ‘middle age’, had an air of someone in authority. After travelling for a while, you tended to get a sense of who was in charge.

“Viceroy this is Clara, Clara this is the base commander” the Doctor introduced them.

The Viceroy stepped closer to them and stretched her hand out towards her. Clara grasped the hand and shook it firmly.

“Nice to meet you” Clara smiled.

The older woman nodded her head in polite acknowledgement before releasing her grip. The Viceroy’s attention then snapped back to the Doctor. Clara started to follow the conversation, but her mind strayed to observing the room they were stood in.

“We registered a surge of electricity…did you…?” the bases commander stumbled over the sensitive question.

Clara saw the Doctor nodding out of the corner of her eye, but her attention was mainly drawn to the antimatter drive behind the glass panelling to the front of where they were standing. They always fascinated Clara – like fireflies trapped in a jar.

“Could you have someone retrieve his body and give him a good burial?” the Doctor asked, although it was as much of an order than a question - “his name was Stavos.”

Clara turned in the Doctor’s direction to smile at her, pleased that the Time Lord was making sure he had some sort of identity other than ‘dead empath’. It felt like they were saving at least a bit of the humanity that the bases original creators had taken from him.

As she turned something else caught her eye – something more significant than anything else in the room.

“Yes of course” – the Viceroy’s words sounded like they were far away.

On the wall behind them was a long crack, the sort of thing you would see in a plaster covered structure not a metal one. Except it wasn’t a normal crack – it wasn’t a sign of damage or wear. There was an eerie light seeping out of it making it look very sinister. Clara had seen something like it before, something just like it.

“Doctor is that what I think it is?” she asked - “we saw one on Trenzalore…a rift in time and space.”

Clara went to take a step towards it, but the Doctor caught her hand and held her there. The Time Lord’s soulful brown eyes gazed at her – a mixture of affection (dare Clara even say love?), sorrow and regret.

“It’s started because of me hasn’t it? Because I should be dead?” she continued when no answer was forthcoming from the blonde.

Clara had thought she had come to terms with her own death, thought that she would be ready when the moment came. That had been before seeing the Doctor again. Now, everything she had loved and wanted was laid out before her again, but she was going to have to go back. Back to Gallifrey, back to the trap street – back to the raven.

That’s why her TARDIS had brought her here, to show her that their time together was up. She had been given one last hurrah with the Doctor, a real one this time, not like the aborted one on the space orient express. Across space and time, the TARDIS had picked up the disturbance like a distress call. Its energy spilling into this plane just a little for now but as it grew it could become catastrophic.

“Oh god it’s my fault he woke up…” Clara gasped.

She had been so wrapped up in herself and what it meant for her that she had nearly forgotten what the Doctor had said in the base below. They had caused this. The energy spilling out of the rift had awoken the empath to his agonising reality.

The Doctor drew her closer using their joined hands, so they were face to face, and rested their foreheads together. The Time Lord was still taller than her but nowhere near as tall as she had been in previous regenerations. It meant that they fitted much more comfortably into this position.

“It’s my fault and that of those who put him in the stasis tank” the Doctor corrected - “not yours…never yours.”

Clara could have gone straight to Gallifrey after ensuring the Doctor was safely back in his own TARDIS. She had chosen to take the ‘long way’ back to the planet of the Time Lords. She was the one that needed to go back there pronto. Not that she didn’t appreciate the Doctor’s attempts to comfort her. If they were going to hug it out, she’d just rather be out of prying eyes, even if the Viceroy had turned her back to them to give them a modicum of privacy.

“Please can we go back to the TARDIS now?” Clara pleaded – her voice breaking as she tried to form the words.

The Doctor simply nodded their farewell to the Viceroy and led her out of the building via there joined hands.

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

The Doctor led Clara up the mountain path back to the TARDIS. They hadn’t spoken since leaving the antimatter drive control room. They had something huge hanging over them, but it hadn’t been an awkward or uncomfortable silence. Clara needed time to process everything and in truth, so did she.

She was meant to have learnt her lesson after trying to change the rules of time for Clara. Even when she couldn’t remember – could only piece bits together from the holes those memories had left – she had learnt the lesson enough not to try and repeat it with River. She had accepted their long night on Darillium as their last. When her memories of Clara had been returned, she had been strong enough not to go looking for her. She’d distracted herself with adventures and her new friends. It didn’t seem easy to follow that lesson now.

The Doctor was broken from her thoughts by Clara tugging her to a halt via their joined hands, so they were stood face to face by the end of the path at the top of the plateau. They hadn’t let go of each other since the brunette had seen the rift on the wall of the base. Despite being more tactile than her former regeneration, the Doctor wasn’t really accustomed to holding people’s hands in this body. It was only ever done out of necessity – like when they were crossing through dangerous nether sphere’s between dimensions. It was pretty important not to get split up then.

Holding Clara’s hand had been common in her bowtie regeneration and had become common place towards the end of her travels together as eyebrows. When she was busy pretending that they were just friends and that she wasn’t desperately in love with the brunette. Code word ‘duty of care’.

“How did you regenerate?” Clara asked bluntly.

The Doctor hadn’t expected the question and it seemed a little off topic. Hadn’t she been talking about this earlier in the TARDIS? Perhaps Clara hadn’t been listening?

“I told you about meeting my former self…” she began to remind the brunette – but Clara cut her off.

“That was whilst you were regenerating – or trying not to” Clara corrected – “How did it come about?”

The Doctor paused, looking down at her booted feet to give herself a few seconds to compose herself. There was one thing she was very good at. She was good at running, at putting all the loss and pain behind her and never stopping to look back. The one time she had turned and had fought back…well the results were currently fracturing time and space. After what had happened on the Mondassian colony ship the Doctor hadn’t had – or allowed – much time to think. The memories were painful and in the scheme of her long timeline, they were fresh wounds and they were still weeping.

“I died to try and save a space craft carrying millions of people from the genesis of the cybermen.”

The words hung between them for a moment before it felt like they were carried away on a light breeze. The atmosphere and conditions were normalising again – it was no longer the stifling heat causing her to sweat but the topic.

“I failed” she added solemnly.  

Clara didn’t comment, didn’t speak. Instead the shorter woman reached her free hand up and gently cupped the Doctor’s cheek. The Time Lord presumed it was a simple of act of comfort until she felt the soft brush of Clara’s thumb against a damp cheek. She hadn’t even realised silent tears had begun to fall. 

“In the end everyone died - Bill, Nardole…Missy” she pushed on with the story - “without hope, without witness, without reward.”

The tears continued to fall as she talked, and all the while Clara’s soft hand brushed them away. She hadn’t known about Missy at first, hadn’t realised her oldest friend had decided to fight at her side. Hadn’t known that one regeneration of the chaotic Time Lord had destroyed the other. The knowledge had been given to him by Testimony through the Bill Potts avatar, along with his memories of Clara. She had expected to fall on the battlefield just like her friends – had wanted to fall and never get up again.

“I didn’t think I would regenerate, I expected to die there once and for all” the Doctor admitted – “I thought it would be my true Trenzalore.”

She felt like she had cheated death so many times now. It was so hard to keep living when everyone around you died – everyone you cared about – everything you loved. Somehow, she was expected to keep on getting up and being a Doctor. Physician, heal thyself. 

Clara released her hand, bringing the freed hand up to cradle the Doctor’s other cheek. Then, rising to her tip toes, the brunette stretched up and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead.

“I knew it had to be sad” Clara said softly – “I could see it in your eyes.”

The Doctor saw it in her own eyes sometimes, if she looked in to a mirror. She’d tried to move past it though and listen to her own advice as she had regenerated. It had been a code that she’d sworn to live by throughout previous regenerations, but she hadn’t always done a good job. She’d let hate, anger, ego and hurt cloud her judgement and decisions – she’d made some very bad ones and even done some very bad things. Still, it was hard to always be good.

Clara dropped her hands away from the Time Lord’s face and grasped a hand again. The Doctor let herself be led towards the TARDIS, trudging behind the brunette like a wounded animal. Every step closer was a step nearer to saying goodbye to Clara again. Every step ached.

## When they reached the blue police box the Doctor stood in front of the door, blocking their entrance to the ship with her body.

## “What if I asked you to run away with me?” the Time Lord asked.

## Except there was nowhere they could run, not even the end of time. The Doctor knew that – she’d already tried. Still, it would be nice – even if just for one second – she could believe it was a real option. She was a Doctor of hope after all, or so she had claimed.

## “We can’t - I want that more than anything - but…” Clara stumbled over the reply.

## There was a sad smile gracing the brunette’s face. It matched the Doctor’s own rueful look. The Time Lord and the time traveller – with time being the only thing they didn’t have left. It was cruel. It was reality.

## “I know” the Doctor smiled.

The smaller woman reached up again and cupped the Doctor’s face in both hands. There were no tears this time, this was as much an act of affection as it was comfort. The Doctor’s two hearts picked up steadily to a rhythm so fast her chest felt like it was burning.

“You’d never be that selfish, not really, not when it came down to it” Clara breathed – “It’s one of the many reasons why I fell completely in love with you.”

The words hit like an arrow to the Doctor’s chest, her hearts feeling like they stopped momentarily, only to kickstart with greater abandon than before. Clara had declared her feelings in the cloisters on Gallifrey but it they had been under the watchful eyes of the General and the Sisters of Kahn. That had rather killed any romance. This time, there was no such audience, just the Doctor, Clara Oswald and the TARDIS.

She grasped the lapels of Clara’s leather jacket and pulled the flush together, their lips meeting mutually as their bodies collided together. Clara’s hands moved from her cheeks, sliding around the back of the Doctor’s head and burying them in blonde hair. At the same time the Time Lord wrapped her arms around the smaller woman’s upper body, her hands grasping at the leather material of Clara’s jacket. They both pulled each other as physically close as possible as their mouths met again and again in a series of desperate open-mouthed kisses. 

When Clara’s tongue ran against the seam of her mouth she instantly responded. Both women let out a loud moan as their tongues danced against each other. The Doctor had kissed hundreds of people in her long-life time, but she couldn’t recall one quite like this – not with this kind of intensity. It made her feel like she was both drowning and flying at the same time. It made her knees feel weak. In the end it was the Doctor who had to break the kiss, her lungs in need of oxygen that Clara no longer required. In her attempts to steady herself the Doctor tucked her head into crook of the brunette’s neck and just breathed her in.

“I’ve waited a long time for you to kiss me like that” Clara said a little breathlessly.

The Doctor straightened up enough to press her forehead against the other woman’s. Her eyes were still shut as she tried to regain some sort of composure, and calm two racing hearts.

“I wish I had been brave enough to do it before…” she admitted - “but I thought it would make losing you even worse.”

That had been the main reason (that and fear of rejection after regenerating into an older man). The Time Lord had learnt a lesson from losing Rose, that allowing a romantic connection could only bring heartache. She’d tried to apply the lesson in her ‘friendship’ with Clara. That hadn’t taken into account how deep their bond would and had grown. Clara had become the centre of her existence -she’d pined when the teacher was back on earth and had often parked the TARDIS in the flat on weekdays and spent the evenings with Clara and the days waiting for her to come home.   

“Come on” Clara instructed softly, stroking her knuckles across the Doctors cheek – “lets at least get back inside the TARDIS.”

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

It was odd the way a person’s mind worked when under duress or stress. Clara, in her attempts to compartmentalise and deal with the reality of returning to Gallifrey, had decided she needed to change her clothes and have a shower. There was no desire to look her best for the other Time Lords, she had meant it in the cloisters when she said she despised them. It just bought her time to take everything that had happened within the last few hours in. The Doctor, the empath, the rift…the kiss.

The Doctor had flown them into the time vortex whilst she had gone to find her old room. The TARDIS was vast and sentient, it never deleted anything, just filed it away. Clara had found it easily enough – her old things still sat there untouched. The clothes she had worn in the second most beautiful garden in the universe were still in the washing hamper. The last adventure her and the Doctor had been on before Rigsy had called about his mysterious tattoo.

The hot water had quelled her ranging mind, if just for a few minutes. After about forty minutes she returned to console room of the ship, still slightly blown away by the new crystalline structures. The Doctor was sat on the grilled steps by the console, tinkering with a device that looked like some sort of scanner. Clara reckoned the Time Lord was just fiddling to keep her mind occupied. As soon as Clara stepped into the room, the Doctor’s head shot up.

“You look nice” the blonde smiled.

Clara felt her cheeks reddening at the compliment. The last regeneration used to just get bashful and look at anywhere but her. She couldn’t recall a time when he had complimented her on a physical attribute. Even the first (and last) time she had worn this dress in front of him. As soon as the compliment was out the Doctor was on her feet, suddenly very active at the controls of the TARDIS. Clara stood on the opposite side of the controls, watching the Doctor as she moved about.

“I found it in my room” she explained - “I wore it that time we ended up in the barn you grew up in and I accidently gave a young you years’ worth of nightmares.”

Clara didn’t know why she’d felt the need to explain that. She hadn’t chosen it because she’d worn it on Gallifrey, however briefly, once before. They had accidently been up and down Danny Pink’s timeline that day before landing at a point in the Doctor’s. Clara had recognised the barn, she’d been there before but years later. On the day the Doctor nearly destroyed Gallifrey – the day three Doctor’s grouped together to save it instead. On this day, there was just a frightened young boy in the dark.

“You helped create the Doctor with one of my own speeches” the Time Lord chuckled – “I realised when I dropped you off home later that night that it had been you under my bed – not a monster.”

Clara had never thought of it like that – that she had implanted the idea of the soldier without a gun. That the things the Doctor had said he stood for, she had repeated back to a young version of himself.

_‘Fear is a superpower. Fear can make you faster, and cleverer, and stronger. And one day, you’re gonna come back to this barn, and on that day, you’re going to be very afraid indeed. But that’s okay. Because if you’re very wise and very strong, fear doesn’t have to make you cruel or cowardly. Fear can make you kind…’_

The question was, who said those words in the first place for them to be implanted in his or her head – who composed Beethoven’s fifth.

 “One of those bootstrap paradox’s you love so much” Clara smirked.

The Time Lord fiddled with some more dials on the console, these ones actually relevant to space travel, rather than just for effect. Clara felt a sinking feeling at the bottom of her stomach – they were about to take flight again.

“How long until we arrive at Gallifrey?” Clara inquired.

The Doctor placed the palms of both hands against the edge of the console and leant forward slightly. Clara noted the way the blonde worried her lower lip with her teeth. There was insecurity in those deep brown eyes, but then it was replaced by a more familiar steely determination.

“There is one last place I want to take you first” the blonde stated.

“Doctor?” Clara questioned.

Did they have time to travel to one more place together first? Should they? Was the Doctor trying to trick the universe into letting them stay together again? Clara didn’t have time to ask any of them before the Doctor gave her a brilliant wide grin.

“Hold on” the blonde instructed.

The Doctor grasped the main drive lever and firmly pulled it down. The familiar noise of the TARDIS rang out as the ship burst into life. Clara grasped the edge of the console panel and despite her worries, couldn’t help but grin back at the other woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments make authors happy bunny's


	11. Infinite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the plot-lite 'romance' chapter. I hope you enjoy it, you have waited for it long enough!

**_“The way to love anything is to realise that it may be lost.”_ **

 

Clara had realised almost immediately that the Doctor wasn’t going to give her any spoilers about where they were heading. So instead of questioning the blonde any further, Clara explored the new TARDIS console. Her own TARDIS had been all smooth surfaces, white walls and clean lines. Clara had never changed the console room much because she liked how light it was. Having it be completely different to the Doctor’s multi-layered, multi-functional control room that she had been used to, meant the ship hadn’t been as much of a constant reminder of her lost love.

This console room, other than the centre piece, seemed to be largely decorative. It looked like an alien art work installation. There was plenty of bells and whistles on the console too. Clara was pretty sure it didn’t need the spinning light up TARDIS or hour glass to function.

The Doctor stood back and observed her as she stepped around the console, Clara’s fingertips running around the edge of the surface as she moved. She reached a strange foot pedal that looked distinctly like a dispenser of some sort. Clara couldn’t resist pressing town on it with her toe. Out popped a biscuit on the console in front of her.

“Custard cream dispenser” the Doctor smirked.

Once upon a time the Time Lord used to love a good jammy dodger. Clara had found it quaint and a little adorable but hadn’t shared his passion. This was a biscuit she could appreciate – and thanks to her time looped body she didn’t have to bother counting calories. She popped the biscuit into her mouth and started chewing, earning a delighted look from the Doctor.

Clara was just brushing the crumbs of her lips with the back of her hand when the TARDIS began to rock slightly. She grabbed the edge of the console as the ship shuddered to a rough halt. Apparently, the Doctor still insisted on leaving the equivalent to the hand break on when she travelled.

“We are here” the Doctor declared.

“Are you going to tell me where here is?” Clara asked.

The blonde Time Lord stepped towards her and slowly stretched out a hand. Clara reached out and took the hand in her own, allowing the other woman to interlock their fingers like earlier. The Doctor softly smiled down at their joined hands before making eye contact with Clara. There was a playfulness there that had been missing on their quiet trek back to the ship, the Time Lord looked…excited?

“Look at this” the Doctor said enthusiastically.

The Time Lord instantly sprung off towards the door, her vivacious energy rubbing off on Clara, who bounded after her. She could feel her own face splitting grin as they made there way to the doors of the ship. She had no idea what to expect, but at least it did seem to be a final trip and not a kidnapping. She’d been worried for a few moments that her Doctor was going to have an emotional melt down and try to escape or override the rules of time and space again.

The Doctor pushed the doors open to reveal the most spectacular view – one she had seen before. A red planet surrounded by sprawling dust rings and smaller planetoids. On one small planetoid sat a pyramid, not dissimilar looking to those at Giza in Egypt.

“The Rings of Akhaten” Clara gasped - “this was the first place in space that we visited together.”

It had been a real awakening to the dangers of travelling with the Doctor. The market had been exciting, the planet was beautiful and the many different alien races had been fascinating. Then there had been an accidently awakened mummy and an ancient alien being that when released burnt as bright as a star. Clara had given away her most prized possessions to save them all. She had felt empowered and exhilarated – it had lit a fire inside her for adventure. 

“Mhmm” the Doctor hummed - “It’s a few hundred years before our last visit.”

The blonde pointed down and Clara’s eyes followed the gesture. The TARDIS was parked on the top of one of the tallest market buildings, out of sight of the crowds, with a view down over the top of the arena were the religious ceremony to honour and keep the old god asleep took place. Clara shuffled right up to the edge of the doorway, so she got a better view. There at the front, overlooking the space between the arena and the pyramid, was the current Queen of Years. Another girl, but this time Clara guessed that she was in her mid-teenage years.

The chorister, who was positioned within the pyramid, began to sing. His voice carried across the stretch of space with an almost mythical quality. Then the young girl began to sing and despite the fact Clara had heard it once before it still took her breath away. It was the most amazing choral voice but with an alien quality that she couldn’t put her finger on. Clara glanced to her side at the Doctor, the blonde as enraptured as she was, and smiled. The other woman realised she was being looked at and angled her own face towards Clara, returning the smile with an affectionate one of her own.

The Doctor released her hand and slipped in close behind her, wrapping both arms around Clara’s midriff and splaying her hands against the navy dress. Clara could feel the heat from the Doctor’s palms through the thin material and leant back into the warm body behind her. The Time Lord rested her chin on Clara’s shoulder, relaxing into the contact. It felt magical to be watching the ceremony like this – cocooned in the Doctor’s embrace.

Then the crowd began to join in with what could only be described as the chorus in human terms – but Clara wasn’t sure the phrase did it any justice. Hundreds of different alien species with unique voices, united together for one universal hymn. The fact Clara knew that they were praying to a parasite was irrelevant. It was still moving and beautiful to witness. Unlike last time, they were able to watch the whole thing through to completion, the old ‘god’ mercifully remaining asleep this time. There would be no need for dramatic rescues, emotional speeches or symbolic offerings.

When the arena fell silent, the ceremony over, the Doctor’s chin lifted of her shoulder. Clara could feel the Doctor’s eyes on the side of her face, so she turned and tipped her head up to look at the other woman. The blonde looked arresting in her beauty, gazing down at Clara with such adoration that it drew the breath out of the smaller woman’s lungs in one long gasp.

“Clara Oswald, my beautiful and amazing impossible girl. You blew into this world on a leaf…and flew out of it in a time and dimensional space ship.”

The Doctors voice was soft, the cadence poetic, like she was reading a sonnet. Clara had already been melting under the intense gaze but now she was putty in the other woman’s hands. As the blonde finished speaking, she lifted her hand to Clara’s cheek and pressed a warm palm against it. Clara nuzzled into the contact, all the while keeping her eyes locked upon the Doctor’s own. The blonde dipped her head slowly, deep brown eyes darting to Clara’s lips.

Clara’s eyes slipped closed as their lips met in the gentlest of brushes, followed by another and then another before locking more firmly together. The Doctor’s lips felt so soft, spreading a feeling of warmth spiralling throughout her body. The Time Lords thumb tenderly caressed her cheek as they kissed, the angle they were positioned meaning that Clara couldn’t comfortably return the affectionate touch.

The smaller woman turned in the Doctor’s arms, so their chests were flush against each other, instantly encircling her arms around the blonde’s shoulders and deepening the kiss. The Doctor moved the hand that had been on her cheek around to possessively cup the back of her head, the other hand freely roaming up and down Clara’s side. She felt herself being gently guided back to the inner wall of the TARDIS, the other woman’s body pressing firmly against her. She hadn’t expected this level of passion from the Doctor but she more than welcomed it.

By the time they broke apart, chests heaving against each other, Clara’s head was spinning. She had no idea what was going on in the Doctor’s head and she searched the other woman’s eyes for answers.

“I know the universe doesn’t owe me anything” the Time Lord breathed – “but surely it can give me just one more day.”

Clara remembered the way the Doctor had raged about the universe owing him – about how, stood at the end of the universe, he was answerable to no one. She understood that this was the Doctors way of expressing she now accepted what was to come. If the Time Lord thought that they could have a few hours to themselves first, then Clara would trust her judgement.  

The Doctor pressed forward again, brushing her lips against the corner of Clara’s mouth. Clara chased the contact, but the blonde lips tracked upwards, placing small kisses against her cheek and eyebrow, out of the shorter woman’s reach. The Doctor’s lips settled more firmly against her temple, lingering there as she next spoke.

“Between one heart beat and the last, that’s all the time we have.”

The words were but a whisper against the brunette’s skin, but she heard them clear enough. If Clara’s heart could beat, then it would be tapping out a frantic rhythm right now. She could feel the rhythm of the Doctors two hearts thumping against her own chest. A heart for each of them.

“Then we better make the most of it” Clara declared – before crashing their lips together again.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

The Doctor rested her head against Clara’s naked shoulder and kissed the other woman’s collar bone softly. After four hours straight of exertion the Doctor’s limbs felt like jelly. Even Time Lords could tire and ache...but apparently bodies trapped in a time loop did not. Clara still looked as fresh as a daisy whereas the Doctor was flushed and wearing a sheen of sweat.

It had been four wonderful hours though, holed up in Clara’s bedroom on the TARDIS. The Doctor hadn’t been intimate with anyone in this body (or anyone full stop since River) which had made it a learning curve. An amazing, intimate, passionate yet heart-warming experience. One which she wouldn’t be forgetting for the rest of her regenerations.

Now that they were just lying together, cocooned in each other’s warmth between Clara’s bed sheets, she could hear the gears in the other woman’s head turning. The Doctor pushed up onto her elbow and kissed the corner of Clara’s mouth once, twice, three times – before gazing down at her love with a warm smile and questioning gaze.

 “It hurt, to know that you didn’t remember me” Clara reflected - “I know that’s selfish of me, because my determination to keep my own memories resulted in you losing yours.”

The Doctor had carried a faint memory, that of meeting a fascinating woman in a North American diner. At the time she could see the waitress clearly but then the memory of how she looked and sounded seemed to slip away as soon as the diner dematerialised. The Doctor had known it was this ‘Clara’ though, the person from the missing memories. It must have been so hard for Clara to stomach – knowing that their ‘relationship’, however you wanted to define it, was basically a black hole in the Time Lords brain.

The Doctor had planned to remove Bill Potts memory of the first adventure they had accidently had together. When Bill had begged to keep those memories, it had triggered an emotional reaction from the Doctor. She had known exactly what it was like to forget about someone important and couldn’t do that to someone else. The Time Lord had thought she was right when erasing Donna’s memory to save her life – in hindsight she had stolen her friend’s agency – it should have been Donna Noble’s choice to make.

Clara turned onto her side, so they were both facing each other, the brunette’s soft breaths ghosting across the Doctor’s chin. The Time Lord wrapped her arm around the other woman’s waist and stroked patterns against Clara’s lower back.

“I didn’t forget the places we had been or that I had been there with you” she explained - “It was like a photograph with someone cut out of it.”

That was the best way the Doctor could describe it. The memories of the places they had visited, the people they had met and saved remained. She had remembered Akhaten, Trenzalore, remembered the Bank of Karabraxos, the Orient Express, Skaro and Gallifrey. Just not Clara. No matter how hard she concentrated. Never Clara.

“I couldn’t remember details - what you looked like, how your voice sounded, your words – how I felt. I knew you had to be really important to me though because of how hard I had fought not to lose you.”

The Doctor had fell for people before, even fell in love. Never had she (or he) broke every law, every code and every standard she lived by for one person. She had never let herself get so dependant on one person – had never craved their attention or time so badly. She had never felt so lonely when that person was away for a few days. Four billion years going around and around in the confessional dial, dying again and again – just for fear of losing one person. One amazing beautiful person.

On Gallifrey, Clara had told the Doctor something important. The Doctor hadn’t had the chance to say it back. Too much was happening in the cloisters and in their final moments they had an Ashildir shaped audience.

“What you said to me in the cloisters…” the Doctor breathed - “I love you too, I think I have loved you since that first visit to Akhaten.”

She could see the blush rise across Clara’s chest and cheeks. Considering what they had been up to for the past four hours, it funny to think it was three simple words that made Clara redden. The brunette reached up and trailed her fingers from the Doctor’s temple, down her cheek and neck, before coming to rest on the taller woman’s shoulder.

“As much as you love time and space?” Clara grinned.

The Doctor knew she was being needled and smiled accordingly. She wanted Clara to know she was serious though. This time she wanted Clara to go to her grave knowing exactly how she felt.

“Space is finite, love can be infinite” the Doctor proclaimed.

The other woman quirked an eyebrow and smiled even wider than before. Despite her obvious amusement the blush on her skin only deepened.

“Oh, so you do charm now in this regeneration!” Clara laughed.

The Doctor was about to protest that her sentiment wasn’t a joke but before she got the chance, she found herself flat on her back, with Clara hovering over her. The brunettes smile softened into a much more affectionate look, before Clara dipped her head down and pressed her lips to the Doctor’s again. She responded eagerly – safe in the knowledge that they still had a few hours left together.


	12. The Hardest Part

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick warning - its the 'face the raven' chapter, so major character death and sadness.

**_‘The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.’_ **

The sound of the TARDIS beginning to land rang out across the room. Clara grabbed hold of the edge of the centre console as the ship shuddered to a halt.

It was funny, that after all this time, she still took a deep breath to steady herself even though she no longer needed to breathe. The Doctor had explained in the extraction chamber that it was just habit. Apparently, some habits were not easily shaken. Clara had made a habit out of surviving too, except for that one small blip on the trap street. That was a habit about to be broken – and permanently.

The Doctor was stood on the other side of the console, a thoughtful gaze fixed upon the central crystal, and her blonde hair curtaining down around her face. The Time Lords long pale blue jacket was folded across a rail, the long sleeves of her white undershirt rolled up. Clara took a moment just to look at her and the way her features seemed to be highlighted in the alien glow from the crystal. She was beautiful – in this moment, painfully so.

When the Doctor had regenerated from his bow tie regeneration, she couldn’t have imagined finding the older, harder angled version attractive. Yet, over time, she had found him handsome. She had gone from fancying the Doctor a bit to loving him. If she had to choose a regeneration to call ‘her Doctor’ – which was stupid because they were all the same person – but if she had to pick one, then it would be him. Even though this regeneration, this stunning blonde woman, was the one who had finally admitted her feelings. Even though this was the one that she had made love to (and for quite a considerable length of time).

This regeneration had other friends, a family even, from the way the Doctor had described her three companions when they had been cocooned in bed together. Clara had felt pangs of jealousy hearing her talk about their adventures – had pictured the Doctor grabbing their hands to sprint away from danger or hugging them when she was excited. They were able to do almost everything she had missed and wanted to do so desperately for decades.

It was stupid to be jealous though and unfair. Besides, she was happy that the Doctor was surrounded by people who cared for her, because one thing the Doctor should never be was alone. God knows what kind of disasters she would get herself into alone. Clara knew the most unselfish thing to do now was to let the Doctor go back to them and face the last short leg of her journey alone. The blonde had so far shown a desire to come with her. Clara wondered, that considering the other woman’s reflective face, she might be regretting that choice.

“Are you sure you want to come with me?” she pressed the Doctor - “you’ve already had to watch this once.”

Clara had told him not to follow her last time, had insisted on doing it alone to spare him having to watch. She’d known he wouldn’t leave her though, that he would follow her out into the street. She hadn’t dared look back but had felt his presence. Then, when time was halted in the extraction chamber, she had looked back towards him in search of an explanation. She’d seen his scared and pained face.

“I need to, or I won’t be able to accept it or believe it” the Doctor replied honestly.

The blonde stuffed both hands into her trouser pockets and slowly stepped around the console until they were nearly nose to nose (or nose to forehead due to the height difference). The Time Lord bent forward and down a fraction and nuzzled her cheek. Clara’s eyes slipped closed at the gentle affection and angled her head, so she could capture the other woman’s lips in a soft, chaste kiss.  

The Doctor unfurled one hand from her pocket and wrapped it around Clara’s waist, cushioning their bodies against each other. Despite the storm that must be racing under the surface the kiss was tranquil, leaving Clara the calmest she had felt since before the Raven. In the days when they would sometimes stand with their arms looped loosely around each other by the console whilst the TARDIS travelled.

When they broke apart Clara gestured with her head towards the Doctor’s coat. They couldn’t go outside the TARDIS with the Time Lord only half dressed. Whilst the blonde went and retrieved the item, Clara headed to the ships outer doors and opened it carefully, poking it out to discover who was there to greet them. As the Doctor had landed them in the council chambers, it was no surprise to find several pompous looking Time Lords stood in a group and gawping at the Police Box.

“Miss Oswald” an elegant black woman politely greeted her.

Even if the woman hadn’t had been wearing the General’s garb, Clara would have still known who it was despite the regeneration. There had been a deep respect for the Doctor, even when it was clear he was about to be shot by him. That respectful tone had been by extension been offered to Clara too, and was still clear and present. Apparently being the hero of the Time War gave you a fair bit of leeway to sin.

“Do you promise me you will give the Doctor safe passage to the extraction chamber and then back to her TARDIS?” Clara demanded.

She could see a couple of eyebrows shoot up at the use of the objective pronoun ‘her’. Apparently, they were not aware that the Doctor had since regenerated either. Then they looked between each other, too slow to answer for Clara’s liking.

“If not, I’ll turn around and go, universe be dammed” she pushed.

She wouldn’t. Clara would have reasoned with the Doctor to make her leave rather than see her come to any harm. They had run once before though (the Doctor twice before) so the threat seemed to hold some weight with the Time Lords.

“You have our word” the General agreed – nodding her head in deference to Clara’s wishes.

Clara felt the Doctors warm body press close behind her and the blonde’s hand slipped into her own. It was time.

 

Xxxxxxxxxxx

The Doctor had felt in a bit of a daze as Clara led her through the halls of the citadel. The General walked ahead, all of them in silence, as people they passed in the corridor shied away in deference. The last time the Doctor had stormed down these halls it had been in an angry rage but there had been a plan and there had been hope. This time there was just a numbness, the only thing the Doctor could feel was Clara’s soft hand entwined with her own.

They reached the extraction chambers and the General shooed everyone else out of the area. She then went and stood in the far corner, right out of the way to give them as much privacy as possible. Clara halted in the middle of the room and drew the Doctor towards her using their joined hands. The Time Lord could see the doorway of the chamber that led to the trap street on earth over the brunette’s shoulder – her eyes drawn to it even though she wanted to look anywhere else in the room.

The General flicked a switch and Clara’s outfit changed into the grey jumper, blouse and jeans she had been wearing that day in 2015. It was a holographic projection, probably to prevent the Doctor back on the trap street noticing anything strange – even just a brief glimpse of the navy dress. The brunette looked down at the outfit and smiled ruefully. The Doctor had thought the other woman looked lovely in the combination, but it was a look that was forever spoilt now.

She forced her eyes back to Clara. The smaller woman was gazing at the level of the Time Lords shoulders, her huge brown eyes damp with unshed tears. The Doctor reached for her, placing two fingers under Clara’s chin and tipping her face up.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

It was a daft question because obviously the brunette wouldn’t be okay. There was an acceptable level of ‘not okay’ and a level that needed her to rise to the occasion and comfort the woman she loved. Clara seemed to understand, the smaller woman smiling softly in response. It was a brave smile, just like the one directed at the Doctor in Ashildir’s chambers as the tattoo tick ticked down to zero.

“Are you?” Clara checked.

That was a difficult question to answer. She was glad they had gotten one last chance to spend time together. Glad that she had gotten how she felt off her chest, so it wasn’t sat there, laced with regret. There had been something comforting though, to think that despite the fact Clara was lost to her, the brunette was off traveling around the universe having her own adventures. When Clara walked through that door there would be a finality to it all. That wasn’t a feeling she enjoyed.

“I hate saying goodbye” the Doctor admitted.

It had always been easier to run away than to say goodbye. 

“So, don’t - I’m in your timestream Doctor - it will never truly be goodbye for us” Clara smiled.

The Time Lord looked at the other woman blankly as Clara reached up and cupped her cheek. The brunette’s thumb slowly stroked across her cheek bone, causing the Doctor’s eyes to flicker closed at the tenderness of it.

 “Thousands of Clara’s split across your past, present and future. Sometimes you wont even see me, sometimes you will. I will always be there though, when you need me.”

The Doctor had never stopped to consider that the echoes of Clara would be spread into the future as well as the past. At the time She had been in what was meant to be her final regeneration, so it hadn’t been relevant. Since then the thought just hadn’t occurred to her. She did know that Clara couldn’t remember details of the echoes, just a few flashes of imagery that had somehow stuck after the Doctor had managed to rescue her from the timestream.

They wouldn’t really be Clara – well in a way they would be, but without her memories and experiences. It was pleasant to think that the brunette would still be looking out for her well into the future though – comforting.

 “Then good luck Clara” the Doctor grinned - It was still an end but not as an impenetrable end as it had felt just a few moments before.

Clara gently guided the Time Lords face towards her own and the blonde closed her eyes, expecting to be kissed. Instead, Clara brought her mouth right next to the Doctors ear, her lips so close the Time Lords skin tingled.

“You know, true love stories never really have endings” Clara whispered.

The Doctor didn’t have a chance to reply before Clara’s lips were pressed against hers. The kiss stole any words that could have been said but were not needed. Words couldn’t capture the understanding and the sparks of love that lay between them. It gave the Doctor courage, it gave Clara courage and then it was over, and the brunette was slipping from her grasp.

“Good luck Doctor” Clara grinned – before turning away and walking towards the door.

The Doctor followed her to the doorway and stood, rigid, just on the Gallifreyan side of the door. She watched the scene in front of her unfold, watched Clara be brave again, until the brunette’s body was limp on the floor. As the tears silently tracked down her face, the door to the chamber slowly slid shut.

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Clara didn’t dare look back again at the Doctor before stepping through the door and onto the trap street. Everything was frozen in time. Her own body, like a ghost, was stood waiting for the Raven that was hovering an inch away from her chest. Then in the background stood the Doctor, a look of absolute desolation on his face. She wasn’t sure how it worked but suspected she would have to step back into her own body for time start again. Otherwise she would have been dead a second after entering the street.

So first, Clara made her way over to the Doctor – the previous regeneration, with his sharp angles, attack eyebrows, grey hair and kind eyes. It had been decades since she had looked upon his face. She reached out and cupped his cheek, just like she had done to his future self just moments before.

“Goodbye, you daft old man” Clara whispered.

She pushed right up on to her tip toes, as high as she could and kissed the cheek her hand wasn’t pressed against. She lingered there for a moment, until her toes couldn’t hold the position anymore, before sinking back down to the soles of her feet.

Clara turned away and faced the Raven again, able to just about see it through the translucent version of herself. She hadn’t ever really slept since this day, not in a human kind of way where one could dream. If she had, this would be the stuff of her nightmares. She remembered the fear eating away at her, but she had refused to give in to it, just like she wouldn’t now.

“Let me be brave” Clara repeated – “let me be brave.”

She stepped forward, one foot in front of the other, not daring to look towards the portal door that remained open. It wouldn’t do to look back at either Doctor now. Another step and then another, till time no longer stood still.


	13. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this is the final part of the story. Just a short epilogue. Thank you to everyone who has read the story and I hope you enjoyed it x

_**‘I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.’** _

The Doctor was stood rigidly still by the console of the TARDIS as it rushed through the Time Vortex to Earth. She had abandoned the original plan of attend the belated meeting with the President of Tri-Klaxion, no longer in the mood for diplomacy after her last ‘adventure’.

Watching Clara face the raven again had been heart breaking and all she wanted to do now was get back to her friends in Sheffield. It was typical behaviour really. The Time Lord found it easier to run from grief and that was impossible to do alone. When she was on her own all she did was think and thinking was painful. It was easy to get stuck in to a deep rut of depression and close off from the universe. It was much better to surround herself with kind people, travel and seek out adventure. 

So, she had programmed the TARDIS to arrive at the allotted time her fam had organised to meet. It would have only been eight hours for them, but it had been nearly a day and a half for her. Not that it had felt that long. The last twenty-four hours she had spent with Clara had flown by far too quickly, like sand slipping through her fingers.

The TARDIS jerked and shuddered violently, the landing about to be a rough one if she didn’t stabilise the vessel. The Doctor grabbed at the controls, flicking switches and dials that usually seemed to right any re-materialisation issues. The TARDIS jerked to a halt, lurching her forward over the console. She tutted at the ship, unimpressed by her behaviour. She was even less impressed when she saw the time. They had landed ten minutes late.

Not that it was a big issue, she’d been two hours late last time and her three travel companions hadn’t battered an eyelid. Graham had such little confidence in her piloting skills he would just be glad she’d arrived at all.

The Doctor busiest herself at the console, adjusting dials and an egg timer that didn’t really need adjusting, just so she didn’t look too desperately eager to see them. The Time Lord had tried very hard to keep everything upbeat and light between them, locking all her history and darkness away. One day it would rear its ugly head – it nearly had just a couple of weeks before when they had fought a scrap yard chic Dalek on Earth. There was nothing in this universe that made her rage like a Dalek.

The door to the TARDIS opened and before she could see them, she could hear Ryan, Yaz and Graham’s jovial laughter. It sounded hollow to her at the moment, but she was sure if she let their infectious enthusiasm sink in, she would be smiling again in no time. Or at least, whilst other people were looking.

The three of them came to a halt just before the step down into the console area. Even after months passing by, they all still looked awed every time they entered the TARDIS.

“Did you do what you needed to do?” Graham asked.

The Doctor hadn’t considered how she would answer any questions they may ask her about her trip without them. They were an unusually un-nosy bunch and rarely questioned anything about her. She couldn’t recall any of them even asking what type of alien she was. She considered just shrugging the question off or deflecting it but then that seemed disrespectful to the woman she had just said goodbye (or good luck) to.

“No…had a detour instead” she admitted - “an old friend.”

All three of them looked curious by her answer. Graham and Yaz glanced at each other and then back at her whilst Ryan went for the less subtle approach. He took a step forward and obviously looked around the console room for any sign of a guest, nearly tripping down the step in the process. When he didn’t spot anyone else lurking about the room her turned his focus back to her.

“Are they still about?” he asked.

It was an unfortunate choice of question, but the Doctor wasn’t surprised he seemed so intrigued. She never really ventured any information about herself so a mystery ‘old friend’ was bound to catch their attention. She wasn’t sure how she could even describe what happened to Clara without scaring the three of them or giving too much of herself away.

“No” the Doctor sighed wistfully - “they’re dead now – died many years ago really.”

Honest but aloof. That seemed to be her new go to tactic when anyone asked her questions. It had been easier in her previous regeneration. It hadn’t been a face that had invited many difficult questions from strangers – she’d had those handy attack eyebrows. Those that she’d travelled with – Clara, Bill, Nadole – well she had let them right in under her skin.

“Who was she?” Yaz asked – stepping forward so she was stood across the console from the Doctor.

The Doctor couldn’t help but smile, albeit a little lackadaisically, at the young woman’s perceptive question. How had Yaz guessed that it was a woman?  She vaguely registered Yaz moving around the console towards her.

“Clara, her name was Clara Oswald” the Doctor responded.

Yasmin came to a halt just slightly further around the console, the custard cream lever between them. The young woman’s eyes were searching – flicking across the Doctor’s face like she would find any answers to her questions written there. The Time Lord dipped her head and looked down at the console, avoiding the scrutiny.

“You loved her?” Yaz asked – or stated – the Doctor wasn’t sure which.

She looked up at her young friend again and simply nodded in response. Nothing more really needed to be said. The Doctor momentarily wondered if it would help to actually talk about Clara and what had taken place. Humans seemed to find that helpful, talking about stuff that hurt them. It helped them process traumatic event. The Time Lord didn’t need to process what had happened – she knew exactly what had happened and why. It just hurt.

Perhaps one day she’d sit down with Yaz or one of the other two and tell them all about her adventures with the impossible girl. Not this day, but maybe someday.

“I’m sorry Doc” Graham spoke up from the other side of the console - “I know how much it hurts when things come to an end.”

She looked up at the older of her three friends. He, out of the three of them, knew about the loss of a loved one. Not a parent or a grandparent, but the person you chose to be your family, the person you cherish. His words reminding her of Clara’s parting sentiment. It had been overshadowed at the time by what came directly afterwards. The brunette’s words finally sunk in and the Doctor liked them. They were hopeful not sad – everything she’d instructed her regenerating self to be.

“True love stories never have endings.”

The words hang between them all, the three humans looking at her with a range of different expressions. Graham looked sympathetic, Yasmin looked at her with fondness and Ryan looked a bit embarrassed and awkward about the more personal conversation they were having.

That brought a smile to her face. It had been the right decision to come straight back to Sheffield, to surround herself by people who cared. Another adventure would do her the world of good. Clara had always told her to run – run, be clever, be a Doctor. She could do that.

“I thought we could go to Volupta 7” the Time Lord suggested - “it’s a pleasure planet – one giant tourism spot with every past time and entertainment you could imagine.”

There would be plenty of interesting alien species there, one of the best markets in that time zone, a huge amusement park, natural hot springs, wild swimming in the many lagoons, beaches, bars and clubs, theatres, something akin to an earth safari…the list went on. They could spend weeks there and not get bored.

“Sounds amazing” Ryan grinned.

The Doctor grinned back at him, suddenly a little concerned he may have a bit too much fun on Volupta 7. There must be a sick bucket somewhere in the TARDIS from the days of Amy and Rory. Poor Rory had always struggled to keep up with his wife when it came to a night out on an alien planet. The Doctor shook the thought of her long-lost friends off, it wouldn’t do well to reflect on that heart-breaking moment today either.

She moved around the console, programming in the coordinates and date for the pleasure planet. Ryan and Graham had joined her and Yaz by the console as she worked. When the Time Lord was ready, she placed her hand on the drive lever, but didn’t pull it down.

“Shall we?” she asked – glancing at the lever as she spoke.

Yaz smiled broadly in response and placed her hand on top of the Doctor’s. The two men followed suit. When all them had placed their hands down she grinned at them and nodded her head. They pushed the lever down and the TARDIS launched into life. Within seconds they were hurtling through the time vortex in search of their next adventure together.


End file.
